


Drawn Into Your Flame

by brokenhighways



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Bikers, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Prison, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 12:07:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3249062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenhighways/pseuds/brokenhighways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is a biker who loves the open road, never staying anywhere for longer than a few days, a week at most. When his bike breaks down and needs serious repairs, he's forced to make nice in a small town where he meets Jared, who doesn't want him to leave.  </p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawn Into Your Flame

**Author's Note:**

> written for SPN_REVERSEBANG for **sweet_lyri** ’s amazing prompt, and her art post can be found here: [[click](http://sweet-lyri.livejournal.com/291314.html)] Many thanks to her (for being a great artist), to anon_fan for her awesome help as usual and to ferrous_wheeler for the seriously amazing beta job.
> 
> I don't own these people, and no profit is being made from this. I also have never seen the real Hope, Texas before so my version is purely fictional and in no way intended to reflect the real one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  


It's nine pm and Jensen's in yet another no-tell motel, wondering why the owners can't deal with the cockroach infestation when they're raking in at least fifty bucks per night from what seems to be a healthy number of customers. Though this isn't even the worst place he's stayed in since he hit the road, so he decides to give credit where it's due. After all, this pokey room from  _is_  a far cry from the swanky, penthouse apartment that he left behind all those months ago. Polished dress shoes have been replaced with well-worn boots, crisp button downs replaced with oversized flannel shirts, and designer suits with a slightly battered leather jacket and jeans that have seen better days. Some might call it a mid-life crisis but this is Jensen's life now, travelling across the country, running from the one thing that follows him wherever he goes - the past.  
  
On this particular night, Jensen knows that he shouldn't set off until it’s daylight but he can't sleep and, in the few minutes he does get, the dreams are waiting. No, the  _nightmares_  are waiting and he doesn't want to stick around and give them a chance to tear him down or make him useless like they generally do. It's always the same dream. Black bars closing in on him until they're pressed down against his body and he can't breathe. He can never breathe. Not until he wakes up panting, sheets soaked in sweat and dark memories that he'd rather forget. Usually he traces the scar under his collar bone and tells himself  _you're still here_  but it's never enough. Nothing is ever enough until he's out on the road, riding at a hundred miles per hour, with the breeze so strong that he forgets his own name, forgets every damn thing about himself and his sorry life and he's just free. He's free.  
  
This illusion comes crashing down roughly three hours after he leaves the motel when he takes a wrong turn and ends up over-correcting and his bike nearly slides into a post, leaving him with an engine that's completely fucked up and some nasty road rash on his chin. As he sits there next to the gnarled metal and wonders what the hell he's supposed to do now, he looks up and catches sight of a sign. It's one of those tourist signs, designed to welcome outsiders but, really, Jensen only ever finds them depressing, and this one is in a whole new league of its own.  
  
It reads:  _Welcome to Hope, TX,_ and Jensen's only thought is  _well, fuck_.  
  
Truth be told, the bike’s been in dire need of repairs ever since he left Arkansas but he’s been putting it off because repairs equals people, and people equals talking, which is the last thing that he wants to do. Not when he can’t trust anyone. The only communication he requires these days is from bartenders and the one night stands he picks up at the bars. Quick drinks and a quick fuck. It’s the polar opposite of his old life - romantic dinners for two at _Nobu_ , followed by a quiet night-in that  _maybe_  led to perfunctory sex. Jensen tells himself that he doesn’t mind, but the truth is that while he’s happy being out on the road, sometimes he misses  _people_  and companionship and all of the things he’s usually running from. And now that he has no choice but to stay in this  _Hope, TX_ , he’ll have to make do with befriending people in town, just until he can get his bike fixed.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
There are some days when Jared thinks that he made the wrong choice in buying a bar because sometimes people get on his damn nerves. Like now, with Ralph the town’s resident drunk and his best friend Bob and their long-running argument about the ‘Greatest Game of All Time’. Jared doesn’t know what sport they’re talking about, or who’s winning the argument, but what he does know is that if he’s forced to listen to one more minute of it, he’s going to outdo Van Gogh and cut off both ears. Unfortunately for him, he can’t leave the bar unattended, so he’s stuck until one of his bartenders get back from their break. Doing his best to tune out Ralph, he takes a cursory glance around the bar, spotting nothing but familiar faces. These are the people he grew up seeing, or grew up with, and sometimes he thinks that his life has been one revolving door that just spins and spins, leaving him in the same place that he started. Other times he looks at the decor and fading paint and thinks  _this place is my only saving grace_.  
  
The irony of living in a town called  _Hope_  isn’t lost on its habitants, though, and occasionally someone will ask him what he’s still doing here. They’ll ask him why he’s not up in one of the big cities like Dallas and Austin, or, hell, somewhere even further like L.A. or New York City, and he tells them all the same thing:  _Hope is home_. On the one hand it’s true, but on the other... Hope is one of those towns that you end up in. It’s not really a place that anyone aspires to be in, especially not someone with enough money to buy a bar. That’s the question that people most want to ask, though no one is outright nosy enough to do so and Jared’s very glad for that. The less he has to think about the year and a half of his life that he  _didn’t_  spend in Hope the better. People in Hope pride themselves on being kind, helpful and all of that cookie cutter small town stuff that you read about in books or see on weird made for television movies, and he’s not about to shatter their illusions.  
  
“Hey, boss, you can take a break now if you want.” Jared nods as Matt goes to collect the glasses, and sneaks into the back so he can escape into the alleyway for a few minutes. There isn’t really anywhere else to go when he lives a couple of streets away. He started off crashing above the bar, but then the local motel had closed and he’d converted the area into a bunch of rooms so the mere straggle of visitors they got would have somewhere to crash. Right now they’re all empty but that doesn’t really bother him. He takes in more than enough money from the bar.  
  
He pulls out his phone, even though he knows there won’t be any messages, and sighs to himself, allowing a few more minutes to pass before he decides that it’s time to go back in. He’s just about to open the door when he sees something out of the corner of his eyes - a lone figure, pushing some kind of motorcycle. Considering that no one in this town even  _rides_  one, he assumes that this guy is an out-of-towner and he heads over to see if he can offer some assistance.  
  
“Hi,” he calls out when he’s close enough. “Name’s Jared. I own the bar just over there. You having some trouble with your bike?” The man doesn’t answer at first, and even though it’s dark, there’s enough light for Jared to know that he’s being sized up.  
  
“I took a spill about thirty minutes ago,” the man says, his voice rough and low. “Engine’s conked out. Hey, I don’t suppose that you know someone who can fix her up before dawn breaks?”  
  
Jared laughs. “If you’re looking for a town of miracle workers, you might want to hit one of the bigger ones. Here in Hope, everything shuts down at five.”  
  
“Apart from the bar?” the man says, and Jared can hear the smile before he sees it.  
  
“Apart from the bar,” he agrees. “You can leave your bike here tonight until morning when the repair shop will be open. And I have a couple of rooms that I let out for visitors if you’re interested.”  
  
“Does everyone in this town make a habit of offering strangers a place to stay?”  
  
Jared laughs again, surprising himself because some days it’s all he can do to crack a fake smile. “Well, tell me your name and you won’t be a stranger anymore.”  
  
“It’s Jensen. And I’m not sure that I agree with your logic, but hey, I’ve got me a place to crash.”  
  
~  
  
The bar doesn’t close until two, so he shows Jensen in after they’ve chained his bike to the side of the building. The first thing he does when they’re finally inside is steal a glance at Jensen and he almost passes out right there on the spot because Jensen’s probably the  _hottest_ guy ever to pass through Hope. Given that Jared's probably come across every single person to go through Hope in the last five years, he's certain that he's the best person to make this judgement. Anyway,  _Jensen_  is tall, just a couple of inches shorter than Jared, he's got light brown hair, pale freckled skin and vibrant green eyes that seem to shine brightly in the relatively dim light of the bar.  
  
“Uh, the rooms are upstairs,” he says quickly when Jensen catches him staring. “Let me just check to see how long they’ll be free.” Technically he specifically employs Sandy to deal with the guests but she’s on a Journ-E (an originally titled Journey tribute band) cruise and as usual he’s left to deal with  _everything_ on top of maintaining the bar. Jared knows that he should keep on top of these things, but he can admit that Sandy does such a great job that he’s become complacent in the past few years.  
  
“So long as I don’t end up on a street corner somewhere, I’m good,” Jensen says with a dry chuckle. “Been there, done that, and I lost my eight hundred dollar jacket in the process.” Jared isn’t sure if Jensen’s joking or not, but he laughs anyway.  
  
“Well, hell, I don’t know if I should be rolling out the red carpet or judging you,” he replies with a smile.  
  
Jensen grins back. “Definitely judging me.” Jared laughs again and goes back to looking at the book, which is… full. There’s a wedding party coming through in the morning and they’re here for a week, leaving Jensen with the choice of Ralph’s garage and… the bench in the park. He feels a stab of annoyance at remembering this, though he vaguely remembers Sandy reminding him repeatedly because she wouldn’t be here.  
  
“Bad news?” Jensen’s peering over his shoulder and Jared side steps away from him. He’s definitely getting a  _vibe_  from Jensen, but he’s not sure that he wants to go there. Normally he would, but… lately he’s been starting to yearn for things he can never have. Attaching gravitas to things that shouldn’t hold any bearing, and right now, he just needs to be on his own and figure out what he wants.  
  
He smiles apologetically. “You can stay here for the night, but from tomorrow we’re all booked up.”  
  
Jensen grimaces. “I guess I could always hitch a ride to one of the big cities in the morning, get my bike fixed up a bit quicker.”  
  
“You could,” Jared agrees. “Or you can stay at my place. I have a room and you don’t seem like you’re the type who’d murder me in my sleep.” There’s a long silence before Jensen answers and Jared can practically feel the other man sizing him and contemplating whether  _Jared_ is the type who’d murder someone in their sleep.  
  
“Only if you’re sure?” Jensen says eventually with a familiar look in his eye.  
  
Jared shrugs when he realises that Jensen is waiting for an answer. “Hey, it’s not like I use the room for anything else.” Jensen gives him a small, teasing smile and Jared bites back a groan. Jared’s not blind, and Jensen’s not exactly been subtle with the flirting. Still, he doesn’t plan on letting anything happen because he’s not really in the mood. He’s been running himself ragged of late, just so he doesn’t have to think and bringing anyone else into the mix is not a good idea – no matter how temporary it is.  
  
~  
  
When Jared makes it back down to the bar, Chad's there, waiting in his usual booth. The familiar sense of dread fills his stomach and he knows right there and then that all of that shit about batting off Jensen's advances will be a thing of the past by morning. Nothing fucks him up more than the presence of his ex-best friend; the one person on this planet that could fuck up his life with just a few words.  
  
"I told him we were closing - like always," Matt says with a grimace. "But he insisted that you'll know what he's here for - like always. I might just get a whiteboard specifically for this because it's getting old."  
  
Matt's convinced that Chad's some kind of stalker that Jared's taking pity on, but most people in town know that he and Chad were friends while growing up. They were damn near inseparable, and if someone had told five year old Jared that one day, Chad would be blackmailing him, he would have made them eat dirt. Yet here they are, twenty three years later with nothing but silence and exchanged bills between them. Truthfully, Jared's slowly reaching his wit's end. He's this close to telling Chad to fuck off and daring him to spill whatever it is that he has on Jared. He's so close... but pride is getting in the way. It's one thing for his family to think that he couldn't hack school, if they knew what else he'd gotten up to it would be a whole other story and Jared's not ready for that. He's not ready to face up to his past. So he pays Chad off.  
  
"You can head off now, Matty," he says when he realises that Matt is watching him expectantly. Matt rolls his eyes and mutters a quiet ' _It's Matt'_  but he goes without argument. Jared heads over toward the booth that Chad is in, pulling out a small package from his pocket as he nears the other man. Chad looks the same as he always does - pale, with dark rings around red eyes and a three o'clock shadow that makes him look as if he hasn't showered in a while.  
  
"How's your kid?" Jared asks as Chad's fingers sift through the wad of cash in the envelope.  
  
Chad finishes counting before he looks up at Jared, his eyes dark and narrow. "Go to hell." He stands up, pushing past Jared as he leaves. The door slams shut and Jared feels the echo reverberating in his chest. Sinking down into the vacated booth, he blows out a breath, wondering if his post-Chad mantra is even worth repeating today. It's always the same thing: he promises that he won't give in so easily next time, that he'll tell the truth or try and make things right somehow, but... it's all lies. He's never going to be that guy that faces up to his demons. He's Jared Padalecki, master of taking the easy way out.  
  
"That looked intense." Jared snaps out of his thoughts abruptly at the sound of Jensen's voice. Somehow he didn’t even notice Jensen walking out into the bar, even managed to forget briefly that Jensen's coming home with him and when he does remember he wonders what the hell is wrong with him. There are a whole bunch of people in this town better equipped to take in a lodger.  
  
Still, there's something easy going about Jensen that Jared likes, as if the leather jacket and riding a motorbike aren't enough to ping Jared's radar. He's all about embracing free spirits.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
Jensen’s never really considered himself to be an unlucky person. Yes, he was betrayed by someone close to him and, yes, that ended up with him in prison but up until that point, life was smooth-sailing for him. He’d breezed through his education, got well-paying jobs, and ended up being one of the youngest CFOs at the company he last worked at. One to watch, that was what people called him, though in the end he really did end up being the one to watch - be it from a courtroom, or a prison cell. However, he’s putting this situation down to bad luck. Of all the towns to end up in, he’s in one called _Hope_ , which happens to have no actual motel and so far his potential hook-up is now firmly under ‘roommate for the next few days’ category and he’s not sure that he wants to go there anymore. Not that Jared’s been responding to his signals, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.  
  
“Guest room’s upstairs, second door on the right,” Jared says when they enter his house. “Make yourself at home.” He disappears into the kitchen leaving Jensen on his own in the hallway. Jared’s barely said a word to him since Jensen walked in on him paying that sleazy looking guy off and he feels bad for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Usually Jensen wouldn’t have said anything. Hell, he doesn’t even need prison history to know that if it doesn’t involve you, you stay the fuck out of it. Yet, the look on Jared’s face resonates with him; that haunted, painful and open look of sorrow that seems so familiar to Jensen. It tells him that there’s more to Jared than just working at some bar and he likes that. He likes Jared, and maybe that’s why this is a bad idea. Jensen’s long ditched rules, or any other boundaries. He just wants to be free to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants, with no restrictions and nothing tethering him down. The last thing he needs is to get  _attached_.  
  
“Is everything okay?” Jared asks when he steps out of the kitchen. “I’m heating up a frozen pizza if you’re hungry.”  
  
 _I don’t think that me staying here is a good idea._  It’s on the tip of his tongue but then Jared smiles at him and Jensen feels an unusual stir in his stomach. He likes Jared’s smile. Usually he would waste little time in getting what he wanted. A meaningless encounter with someone he won’t give a damn about after but this is already overcomplicated. Jared’s no longer just some hot guy with a bar and a knack for inviting strangers into his home, he’s a person with  _feelings_  and unlike some of the men he was surrounded with in jail, he’s not so far removed from society that he’d try to take what he wanted without a care in the world. Or maybe he is like those guys - maybe he’s just gotten good at pretending that he actually gives a shit, when in reality, he’s just like them. Someone who uses people for their own selfish needs.  
  
He sighs to himself quietly; he doesn’t really want to think about it.  
  
“Jensen?”  
  
“Yeah,” he says with a smile of his own when he realises that Jared’s been waiting for an answer. “I’m just going to go and dump my bag upstairs and I’ll be right down.”  
  
~  
  
Four hours later, they’re laughing hysterically at some stupid infomercial on television.  
  
"Who even buys these things?" Jensen asks as they watch an infomercial for some kind of extendable fridge cleaner.  
  
Jared snorts, "People with short arms?" They look at each other momentarily and burst into another fit of laughter. Jensen doesn't remember the last time that he laughed this much and the thought is a sobering one. He doesn't do this anymore - people. He sticks with the open road and does his best to appreciate the fact that he's free. There's no one to betray him out there, no one who can hurt him because everyone is a stranger, including Jared, and he has to make sure that it stays that way.  
  
“Hey, if you want, I have something that might help with the road rash,” Jared says, and his hand reaches out to touch Jensen’s chin. Jensen stays as still as possible and soon, Jared lets his hand fall away, blushing slightly when he realises what he’s just done. “Sorry.”  
  
"I'm going to try and catch some Z's," he announces. He stands up, and lets out a yawn that surprises himself. It's not like he was on the road for that long, though three hours isn't a walk in the park, so there's that.  
  
"No problem and I’ll try and get you that cream in a few minutes," Jared says with an easy smile that makes something flutter within Jensen. He chides himself mentally and forces himself to smile back. “Just gotta sort some things out down here.”  
  
“Thanks,” Jensen says a stiffly. He can still feel the phantom touch of Jared’s fingers on his chin and every instinct in him is screaming  _run_.” Jared isn’t done talking though.  
  
"I'll call Jim before I head out; let him know where to pick up your bike. He's the mechanic."  
  
Jensen raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, I figured." Jared doesn't bat an eyelash at Jensen's dry tone, which leaves him even more intrigued. Jared's smart, funny, and definitely wasted in this small, sleepy town. Not that there's anything wrong with Hope, but... he's not sure what a guy like Jared is doing in a town like this.  
  
And, worryingly enough, there's a part of him that really wants to find out.  
  
~  
  
Jensen doesn't wake up until lunchtime, and when he finally makes it back downstairs, there's a note from Jared on the fridge telling him to help himself to whatever he wants or to call if he needs anything. He programs Jared's number into his phone and opens the fridge. After wondering if it's too early for him to drink a beer, he shuts the door and goes to grab his jacket. Within minutes, he's outside, phone pressed to his ear as he waits for Jared to pick up.  
  
"Hello?" Jared's smooth voice sounds down the line and Jensen pushes down that annoying flutter in his chest.  
  
"Where can a guy get a decent breakfast around here?" he asks, smiling despite himself.  
  
"That would be the diner. It's a ten minute walk from my place." Jensen listens carefully as Jared gives him some quick directions and commits them to memory. He wants to check in on his bike first but the way his stomach growls tells him that he needs some sustenance first. Jared's behind the counter when he gets there and Jensen is slightly taken aback. If Jared owns the bar why is he working here?  
  
"Hey!" Jared says when he sees him. He whips off his apron and puts it up on a hook somewhere behind him. "I've got to head out and set up the bar but everything's good here."  
  
"I didn't realise that you worked here," Jensen states even though he's not supposed to care. He's not supposed to want to know anything about Jared because he's leaving. Maybe not today, but soon. As soon as his bike is ready.  
  
"I don't," Jared says. "My parents own this place so I help out occasionally. Oh, by the way, your bike is over at Jim's Auto Shop. Here's his number." Jensen frowns, not liking that Jared got a hold of his keys somehow without his knowledge.  
  
“How did you get my keys?” he asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. Jared eyes him warily, and scratches at his chin before he shrugs.  
  
“From your jacket pocket. I didn’t want to disturb you. Next time I won’t go near them, alright?” Jared sounds tired enough that Jensen accepts the scrap of paper and nods his thanks. Without another word, Jared leaves. It's all so abrupt that Jensen can't help following him, all but running to catch up with Jared before he gets into his truck.  
  
"Is everything okay?" he asks when Jared looks at him expectantly. "You seem a little off?"  
  
"I'm fine," Jared says with a smile. It's a million miles away from his genuine one and Jensen hopes that he's not the reason why. "I didn't get any sleep so I'm kind of running on empty. And I can't exactly call in sick at the bar."  
  
"Why not?" Jensen asks. "There's got to be some perks when you're the boss, right? And if it wasn't for me you probably would have gotten some sleep."  
  
Jared laughs softly. "Sleepless nights are kind of my forte these days."  
  
~  


## 

  
  
Jared doesn't know why he's not telling Jensen that he's fine but he tries not to fixate on it. This has been his life for the last three years. Working himself to the bone just so he doesn't have to think - especially after an encounter with Chad. Staying up with Jensen was the most relaxed he's been in a while and he knows that he can't get used to it.  
  
"Tell you what, how about I get something to go and I'll come and help you out? To say thanks for dragging my bike to the shop for me?"  
  
Jared agrees, if only so he can have a few moments alone while Jensen disappears into the diner. From where he’s standing, he can see through the glass and watches as both of his parents stop to talk to Jensen. They’re smiling while they talk and he figures that it’s all going alright. He looks away, takes out his phone, and fires off a few texts to Sandy. He thinks about mentioning Jensen to her but stops himself.  
  
He’s not sure what to say.  
  
~  
  
“So, isn’t it kind of weird, having a bunch of rooms above a bar?” Jensen asks while watching the new arrivals flock upstairs. “I can’t imagine that it’d be very peaceful. Not that motels not above bars are quiet.” Jared stops wiping down a glass momentarily and counts down from ten, taking a deep breath before answering.  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s either this place or a motel in the next town, so they just have to deal with it. Most of the time, the fact that they’re above a bar is a plus. Lots of cheap booze.” Jared knows that his a tone is a little cold but Jensen’s been asking questions since they got here and he’s literally one more question away from exploding. The only thing stopping him is the fact that his bad mood isn’t down to Jensen, but a combination of being on edge because of Chad and his parents badgering him about when he’s going to ‘settle down’.  
  
Jensen’s about to respond when Matt appears and points in the direction of the upper floor. “Looks like they’re happy with everything. We’re not the ones doing the wedding reception are we?”  
  
Jared freezes. “Is this the Weatherly wedding?” Matt nods.  _Shit_. They’re not usually in charge of catering but typically someone gives him a check and he organises the decorations and orders whatever they want alcohol-wise. Weatherly doesn’t live in town so somehow it’s just managed to slip his mind, but considering that he grew up here, still has a bunch of family members living in town and owns quite a number of the major establishments, Jared fucking up his wedding will be a pretty big deal.  
  
“It’s okay, we can figure it out,” Matt says when Jared can’t bring himself to admit that he’s dropped the ball on this one. “We just need to find someone willing to deliver everything that we need within… uh, three days.”  
  
Jared groans. “I have no idea where I put all of the details. The planner was supposed to get back to me with the details but I didn’t hear anything.”  
  
“Probably because you changed the number last month,” Matt says. “We kept getting those cold calls, remember, and you demanded that the phone company do something ‘or else’.”  
  
Jared frowns at Matt. “You are… surprisingly on top of things.”  
  
“That’s why you made me the bar manager.” Matt glances at his watch and disappears into the back, leaving Jared on his own with Jensen who’s got a funny expression on his face.  
  
“What?” Jared asks wearily. If he didn’t have to help Matt, he would just go home now and preferably sleep for a week but he’s here and Jensen’s here, so the least he can do is try to be nice.  
  
“I might be able to help you out with your wedding situation,” Jensen says slowly. “If you want. Ordering stuff should be fine, it’s just getting it here on time that you need to worry about.”  
  
Jared shrugs. “We could just get Weatherly to fast track everything for us. It’s his wedding.” Jensen’s face falls and Jared kicks himself mentally. He’s been a complete ass today and he hates it.  
  
“Thanks for the offer though,” he adds hastily.  
  
“No problem,” Jensen says. “I think I’m going to head back to the house now. Is that okay?”  
  
Jared nods, not trusting himself to speak.  
  
~  
  
Hours later, when the bar’s in full swing, Jared’s still awake and more irritable than ever. Matt and the other two bartenders are arguably doing a lot more of the work than he is but he can’t answer when they ask him why he’s still here. He can’t answer but Chad can, and there’s no surprise when he shows up around nine and sits at the bar. Jared watches him silently for a few minutes and does his resolute best not to ask whatever force is out there what he’s done to deserve this, because he knows what he’s done.  _Chad_  knows what he’s done. However, Chad is no angel, no innocent party, and Jared doesn’t think that he should be forced to pay for something that was out of his control; something that Chad was more involved in than he thinks he was.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he asks, after he makes his way to Chad and sets a bottle of beer in front of him. Chad eyes it coldly but he doesn’t move to take it. He never does, even though the stench of alcohol always pours off him, regardless. “I’m not going to give you another payment today.” They’ve done this dance several times over the past few months. Chad comes in here once – Jared pays him. He comes in again – no payment. He gives the place a miss just long enough for Jared to start freaking out and he pays him. It’s a cycle and Jared’s just about ready to take a sledgehammer to it and break it down.  
  
“Can’t a guy just come and visit his best friend once in a while,” Chad says in that gruff tone that’s so unlike the way he used to sound.  
  
“Not when he’s blackmailing said ‘best friend’,” Jared retorts. “And I’m sick of it, Chad. I did what I did and…  _you_  did what you did. I can easily make you stop if I want to.”  
  
Chad snorts. “What are you going to do, call the cops?”  
  
Jared grabs the beer and takes a long swig, making sure that his eyes never leave Chad’s. “You know that I’m not going to do that,” he replies. “But I can call CK and tell him that you’ve been making threats, and you know where that’ll leave you.” At the mention of CK, Chad pales and Jared watches as his hand balls up into a fist. He’s bluffing, definitely bluffing, because CK’s a big enough headache for  _him_  let alone Chad. Still, Chad doesn’t know that and he doesn’t need to know. He just needs to fuck off.  
  
“You wouldn’t.”  
  
Jared smiles coldly. “Try me.” Chad stares at him for a long moment, long enough for Jared to see what looks like disappointment in his eyes. He almost laughs at the irony of it all. Chad got him into this mess in the first place; he has no right to be disappointed with him. No right at all.  
  
“You used to be one of the good guys,” Chad says softly. “You were nice, small town Jared. The guy that people could rely on. What the hell happened to you?”  
  
“I met you,” Jared spits out. “And you weaved your web of poison around me. So good job on that. What about you?”  
  
“Forget about me,” Chad says. He slides off the barstool and shakes his head. “I’m leaving.”  
  
*  
  
The house is quiet when he gets back and Jared sets about trying to find the wedding information. No doubt Sandy probably left it somewhere but she’s not picking up her phone. He’s already called Weatherly to let him know that there’s a time-sensitive issue, so it’s just a matter of contacting the planner (it didn’t seem like a good idea to admit that he’d lost it – not if he wants to get paid) and ordering the right stuff.  
  
Matt’s comment about him changing the number is throwing him off though, and he spends more time staring into space than looking for the information. The calls weren’t ‘cold calls’ but from a former acquaintance that Jared wants to forget. The infamous ‘CK’ he used to scare off Chad. He was their boss – as much as someone who makes a living stealing can be a boss anyway. When Jared dropped out of college, Chad introduced him to this guy and he’d done a few small jobs. Nothing major, just dropping off packages and collecting cash. Small things that didn’t lead to anyone getting hurt. Until one day it was a bigger job, and Chad had a fucking gun, and then Jared was sticking flash drives into computers that weren’t his and pretending that the numbers flashing on the screen weren’t all that bad. And then the police caught wind of CK’s  _entire_  operation and suddenly they were all being paid off and someone was arrested – Jared doesn’t remember who.  
  
All he knows is that no matter how hard he tries to put that mess behind him, something always comes calling and brings it back up again, and he’s sick of it. He shakes off his thoughts and rubs his eyes, before opening the book where he does the accounts. He’s got a lot of work to do before he can finally go home.  
  
~  
  
Jared wakes up to the smell of bacon. This is unusual for a number of reasons, the most important being that there are no groceries in his house. After wondering for a few seconds if he’s being robbed by a weird breakfast-making burglar, he remembers that Jensen’s staying with him at the moment. Jensen, who he was a complete and utter ass to yesterday. He groans as he sits up, feeling the usual twinge in his back and wonders when it was that sleep became something that just fucked him up instead of making him feel refreshed. Right now he just wants to slide back under his covers and forget his own name.  
  
“I hope you don’t mind me using your stove,” Jensen says with a rueful smile when Jared eventually makes his way downstairs. “Guy’s gotta eat. And your parents were kind of… pushy yesterday.”  
  
 _That_  wakes Jared up. He loves his parents but they’re very opinionated when it comes to his life. To the point where he sometimes thinks he should move back home and just get his mom to do everything for him, because she seems to want to even though he’s an adult. He feels bad for not warning Jensen about them before he went into the diner.  
  
“Pushy, how?” he asks, while eyeing the coffee maker. “You didn’t tell them that you were staying here, did you?”  
  
Jensen frowns. “I think they asked me more questions than my college interviewer did. Am I married? Any kids? What do I do for a living? How do I know you? As for me staying here, they asked and I didn’t see a reason to lie… Sorry?” He doesn’t look apologetic but he’s in the middle of pouring coffee into a second mug and Jared’s more interested in that. He watches on as Jensen stirs in the cream and two sugars, surprised that the man remembers how he likes his coffee  _already_.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Jared says with a dismissive wave of his hand when Jensen sets the mug down on the table. “They’re in that weird phase where they pester me about who I’m dating and when I plan to get married blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve just stayed in the city.”  
  
“My parents are more concerned about me throwing my career away,” Jensen replies with a wry chuckle. He moves to turn the stove off quickly before turning, with oil from the spatula dripping, and continuing, “Which one of us has it worse?”  
  
“Probably me because I see them every day!” Jared laughs despite himself. He doesn’t particularly want to discuss his parents anymore, so he picks up on what Jensen’s just said.  
  
“So, what did you do before you decided to hit the open road?” he asks. “You definitely don’t seem like your typical biker.”  
  
Jensen looks a little put out at that. “Do you know how much my jacket cost?”  
  
“Well, it looks expensive, which is probably what makes you not seem like a typical biker,” Jared says. “If I would guess I’d say that you were some kind of corporate type person.”  
  
“And what makes you say that?” Jensen’s dishing the food out onto the plates, and Jared wonders what it’ll be like to eat something other than his parents cooking for once, because the entire town knows that all he’s good for kitchen-wise, is transporting plates.  
  
Jared grins. “When Jim quoted me the price for your bike, he said that he’d probably end up knocking it down by fifty percent because none of the bums – his word, not mine – that pass through Hope can ever afford to pay for the damage they cause. He stopped by last night and told me that not only did you not stall on the initial price, you paid him upfront, with cash. Ergo, you’re someone who used to do a job that paid pretty well. And also your watch probably costs more than one of my mortgage payments.”  
  
“You’re reasoning is off,” Jensen concludes, “but your conclusion is correct. I used to be the CFO of a reasonably sized company. And now I’m not. My parents didn’t really know how to be there so they just threw money at the situation, like always. The watch…it was a gift.” There’s a flat note to his voice and Jared knows that he’s firmly in ‘Off Limits Ville’. He can relate to that at least.  
  
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” he says as he takes a seat at the table. “I guess I can’t ask why you’re not… one of those anymore.” He takes a sip of his coffee and desperately tries to figure out how to dig himself out of the hole he’s made for himself.  
  
Jensen gives him a blank look as he sets the plates on the table. “You kinda just did. And I’m not really ready to talk about it.” He moves back towards the drawers to grab the cutlery and Jared decides that maybe Jensen  _needs_  him to do some digging, maybe he needs a shoulder to lean on.  
  
“Maybe you should be ready,” Jared says. “I know better than most people that bottling stuff inside is no good. It just eats away at you until one day—“  
  
“--You’re living at home, surrounded by people who love you and want what’s best for you?” Jensen interrupts. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me.”  
  
“It’s not bad!” Jared says quickly, because that’s not the point he’s trying to make. “I’m just saying that you choosing to be alone maybe isn’t the best thing.” He’s not sure why he isn’t letting this go, but it does seem a little weird that a high flyer like Jensen would end up coasting from town to town on a _motorbike_. Based on his experience of people passing through town, the reason is usually more  _midlife crisis_  than free spirit.  
  
“The last time I lived with people, I shared a shower with twenty other guys and had a roommate whose name was Knuckle Duster.” There’s a haunted look in Jensen’s eyes but Jared still doesn’t understand. In what universe would a grown adult find himself showering with twenty other dudes? It takes a moment for the answer to hit him and when it does he feels like a complete idiot.  
  
“You were in prison?” Jared sets his fork down, appetite suddenly fading. Jensen’s never given him any indication of being a bad guy, or violent, so he’s shocked to hear this.  
  
“Don’t worry, it was a white-collar crime that I was in for,” Jensen replies bitterly, obviously picking up on some of Jared’s trepidation. “I’m not going to try and strangle you in your sleep.”  
  
Jared eyes him warily. “I didn’t say that you were.” Jensen’s gaze is unwavering and intense and he picks up his mug and drains his coffee, just so he has something to do with his hands.  
  
“I didn’t do what they said I did,” Jensen says, more to the room than Jared. There’s a distant look in his eye and guilt starts to rise up in Jared’s chest as he wonders why he couldn’t just let it drop when Jensen asked him to. “They accused me of stealing money.  _Embezzling_ company funds. I was on bail for three years before it went to trial.”  
  
“It took three years to go to trial?” Jared has no idea why he’s still talking. He’s usually astute in the mornings, but apparently he’s in stupid-mode today.  
  
Jensen turns back to look at him. This time there’s anger in his eyes and the green looks darker than it normally does. “They didn’t have enough evidence until someone came forward, and that someone was my best friend. You ever heard of a Tom Welling?”  
  
“No,” Jared says, holding out his coffee mug when Jensen gestures toward it. There’s a brief silence as Jensen refills his cup and there’s a blank look in his eye when he sets it down in front of Jared.  
  
“Well stay away from him if you ever cross paths, he’s a backstabbing asshole.”  
  
Jared would be lying if he said he wasn’t confused, but he doesn’t think asking Jensen to clarify is appropriate, so he merely says, “Why would he falsify evidence and frame you?”  
  
“Because I found out it was him who stole the money and he wanted to save his own ass.”  
  
“Maybe he had a good reason for taking it,” Jared says, unable to filter himself. “Maybe someone made him do it.” For some reason, part of him wants to relate his situation to Jensen’s just for some validation. Just so someone, anyone, can help him get over the fact that he did something wrong because he felt that he had no choice. The drugs, the drinking, the incident with Chad, getting kicked out of school – Jared holds his hands up to all of that. It’s on him. Everything else? Was the amplification of a bad situation, but he can’t own up to that. He  _won’t_.  
  
“No one made him do anything,” Jensen says bitterly. “He chose to steal. He chose to betray me and we both have to live with that.” Before Jared can dredge up even more bad memories, Jensen leaves the kitchen and there’s thudding footfalls as he makes his way upstairs, followed by a door being slammed.  
  
“Way to go, asshole,” Jared mutters. He shoves his mug aside, slumps down onto the table and presses his forehead against the cool wood.  
  
He wonders when he’s going to stop fucking things up.

 

 

 

 

 

  
Jensen’s pacing across the room so much that he almost doesn’t notice the apron that he’s still wearing, or that he still smells like bacon, or that he’s fucking  _starving_ because Jared lives like he has some kind of complex when it comes to having stocked cupboards. He could tell Jared a thing or two about  _his_  life. And maybe he should because the one thing that Jensen avoids is talking about prison. Just thinking about it makes him sick. It might have been a low security prison compound but it was still awful. He still got his face bashed in three times because he couldn’t fight for shit, and when he was finally taught a couple of moves, that was  _wrong_  too.  
  
The worst thing was that prison was just the culmination of what was a shitty time. Three years of not being able to work, of not being able to look his friends and family in the eye just because he wasn’t sure if they believed him. Three years of relentless depositions before that fateful accusation. And now he has  _Jared_  – who he doesn’t even fucking know – lecturing him on choosing to be alone when the guy lives in what’s basically a frat boy’s dream - an empty shell of a place with nothing in it but a ridiculous amount of alcohol. Jared who’s being  _blackmailed_  by some guy and resigning himself to running a bar that he doesn’t seem to have any passion for. Perhaps he needs to tell Jared about how monumentally fucked up his life is. He doesn’t have to deal with this, he can leave the comfortable guest room and sleep somewhere else while the bike is fixed. A park bench, or hell, maybe even the street, it’s not as if he hasn’t slept in worse places. He would rather do that than listen to some  _stranger_  judge him. Jared might be attractive, but there’s nothing pretty about what he said. He doesn’t have to deal with this. Mind made up, Jensen wrenches the door open and makes his way downstairs. He can see Jared through the kitchen doorway, still sitting there and looking half asleep, and Jensen uses the fact that he finds it adorable to fuel his anger.  
  
“You know what? Maybe you’re right. Maybe choosing to be alone isn’t a bad thing. Maybe there are good reasons why someone would  _steal_  and then lie about,” Jensen says ignoring the way Jared flinches when he sees Jensen standing in the doorway. “But you don’t have the right to lecture anybody, not when you’re even more fucked up than I am.”  
  
“How do you work that one out?” Jared’s not angry – yet – his tone is more curious than annoyed and that pisses Jensen off even more. He wants Jared to be as furious as he is.  
  
“You’re being blackmailed by that guy, that’s one thing,” Jensen says. “You act like you belong in this town but you don’t seem to have any friends. Hell, Jim called you ‘lonely soul’ when I went to check on the bike yesterday afternoon. Matt seems like he’s more babysitter than employee, and your own parents were happy to try and palm you off on a guy they’d only seen for three minutes. You might love this place but it doesn’t seem to love you back and maybe that’s because they know that you’re running from something.”  
  
“And what if I am?” Jared says calmly. “At least I can be honest with myself. All of that is true because I want it that way. I don’t want friends, and that bar… it’s all I have, but sometimes I wish I could just burn it to the ground and walk away, but the town relies on that place, my employees need the pay check. So if I have to lean on Matt to be able to make all of that shit happen, that’s fine.”  
  
“That’s bullshit,” Jensen says. “No one chooses to be unhappy.” Jared gets up slowly and Jensen catches the slight wince on his face, sees the faint lines on his face.  
  
“I’m not choosing to be unhappy, Jensen, I’m just choosing to be in control.” He tries to get past, but Jensen doesn’t move. He can’t because even though he’s still angry, he can’t help but feel sorry for Jared because that’s a messed up outlook on life.  
  
“You’re not choosing to be happy, either,” he points out. Jared looks at him and it’s almost as if he shuts down right there and then.  
  
“We don’t all deserve to be happy,” he says and Jensen can’t just let that slide. He might be messed up himself, and bitter over what the last portion of his life has turned into, but he still has hope. He’s still that naïve guy he was back then and maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s good. Or possibly stupid, but he’d rather have hope than nothing at all.  
  
Either way, none of that explains why his next move is to close the space between them and kiss Jared. All thoughts of leaving flew out the window as Jared responded by pulling him in tight and suddenly staying seemed like the best idea in the world if it meant that the taste of Jared’s lips would be on his, and Jared’s body would be flush against his, as they finally gave into the sexual tension lingering around them.  
  
~  
  
Jensen wakes up with slow, fitful movements, wincing as light from the window hits his eyes. The ceiling is different from the one he's spent the last two nights staring at and he flushes as he recalls just exactly what he and Jared have been up to. Apparently pushing the other to reveal all was just their version of foreplay. He turns over and isn't surprised to see an empty spot where Jared was. There are some noises coming from the master bathroom though, so he's not worried about being ditched. Yet. With any luck maybe he can persuade Jared to skip work. Yeah, Jared might not have treated him the best, and they really don't know each other, but he  _likes_ him. And he's not averse to having some fun before he has to leave town.  
  
Thankfully the bathroom door opens before Jensen can daydream about any prospective debauchery, and he sits up quickly. Jared emerges fully dressed, with his hair still wet from the shower. He looks over at Jensen but doesn't say anything. Deciding that he can't handle any awkwardness right now, Jensen breaks the silence first.  
  
"Hey." It's not much of an icebreaker but it's better than them dancing around what's happened. "What time is it?"  
  
"Four," Jared says while he's shoving his boots on. "I gotta go and open the bar. I'm late as it is."  _Yeah, because you actually slept for once_ is what Jensen is thinking, but after this morning he decides to reserve judgement for later.  
  
"Can't Matt do it?" Jensen asks. "I thought he was the manager." Jared tenses up, the way Jensen has already learned he does when he doesn't want to answer a question. Truth be told, Jensen's more curious about what the issue is with Matt than Jared's reasons for being the way he is. If Jared wants to tell him what went down before he settled in Hope, then fine. If not that's also fine. Sure, he'd been pretty curious this morning but apparently sex is a real eye opener. Well. That and having someone else pry into  _his business._  
  
"You know, apart from my parents, you're the only person in a long time who's questioned me," Jared says. "I can't say if I find it irritating or not. I'm leaning towards not, but that might be down to... other factors."  
  
Jensen laughs. "I'm just curious. I've met closed off people before, hell, I  _was_ one, and I didn't get that vibe from you. Trust me, I don't make a habit of talking to anyone these days, much less befriending them. But I like you."  
  
Jared smiles sheepishly. "I like you too, friend."  
  
"I'm still curious about Matt."  
  
Jared exhales slowly. "You know that saying 'Keep your friends close and enemies closer'? That's what's happening with Matt. The bad crowd I hung out with in New York are the kind that... keep a watchful eye on anyone that knows  _anything._ Matt showed up out of the blue two years ago. And he's perfect. He's never missed a day. Never late. He's just there. Every day."  
  
"Maybe you're being paranoid?" Jensen says. He has no idea what Jared's mixed up in but this town is so small that he doubts that things are going to go all ‘Murder, She Wrote’ on everyone.  
  
Jared smiles grimly. "I wish. I had him investigated, and two years ago, Matt Cohen didn't exist. So explain that one away."  
  
Huh. Jensen has to admit that does sound weird. And even though he wants to know more, he keeps his mouth shut.  
  
It's Jared's life and within two weeks, he won't be a part of it anymore.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
Jared's not sure how it happened. One minute Jensen's yelling at him and the next they're kissing and getting down to business right there in the kitchen doorway. And then somehow they made it to a bed and while the details are hazy, he remembers the important parts. Hooking up with someone isn't unusual but... Jensen's the first person that he's fallen asleep next to since he moved here, and that scares him. It means that he trusts Jensen and... He doesn't know what that means. Jensen is a drifter. A conflicted, angry and betrayed drifter, but still one all the same. He's been in  _prison,_ got a legitimate excuse for his lifestyle whereas Jared's confined himself to a shell brought on by his own self-inflicted stupidity. In spite of Jensen's intrusive questions, there's still something about him. This... openness that makes Jared want to tell him everything. And while he isn't planning on going that far, he thinks that they can still have fun. Like now.  
  
It's late and they've just gotten back from the bar when he pounces on Jensen and attacks his mouth, his arms wrapping around strong shoulders as he guides them to the closest wall. Jensen kisses him back at first but after about a minute he pushes Jared back. He might be saying something but Jared's momentarily distracted by the slick pink of Jensen's mouth.  
  
"What?" he says stupidly as he pulls back slightly. Idly, he notices that his place looks much neater than it usually does but he’s distracted by the sound of Jensen’s voice before he can dwell on it for too long.  
  
"I said that I think you might be right about Matt," Jensen repeats. Jared takes a step back and frowns. He wasn't aware that Jensen was watching Matt. He himself was distracted by some stupid argument they had about which was the best Star Wars movie. And by Jensen in general. Truthfully, Matt and all of that business, is the furthest thing from his mind right now.  
  
"I don't want to talk about that now," he murmurs eventually. He gives Jensen what he hopes is a sultry look.  
  
This time Jensen kisses him first.  
  
~  
  
Two days later finds them at his parent's diner, sharing a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Jared's not really one for breakfast because he's usually helping out, but his parents don't mind him sitting down with Jensen instead. Judging from the oddly proud expression on their faces, they're hoping that things with Jensen are going to be long term. He wonders when he's going to stop disappointing them.  
  
"How's your bike doing?" Jared asks once Jensen's inhaled his third cup of coffee. In the past few days he's learned that there's no talking to Jensen until he's had his coffee. Jared's always been a morning person, but he finds the grumpy thing cute.  
  
"Good!" Jensen says brightly. "He still hasn't got the main part for the engine yet but he's fixed up quite a lot of things. Once he gets the part, it shouldn't take him long." There's a stab of disappointment in Jared's chest. He's starting to get used to Jensen's presence around the house, the bar... and heck, even his bed. He knows that Jensen leaving was always in the cards, but... he doesn't want him to go.  
  
"Uh, that's good, I'm glad," he replies quickly when he realizes that Jensen is watching him. "Jim's a great mechanic." Jensen's about to respond when Jared's phone goes off. He checks the display and freezes when he sees that it says  _Unknown caller._ He excuses himself and decides to answer it, just in case it's Sandy and she needs to be rescued from her cruise.  
  
"Well, if it isn't little JT," a smooth voice sounds down the line. Jared tenses so hard that it's like his veins have turned to ice. His chest is constricted and he struggles to breath.  
  
"What do you want?" he hisses. "I've kept Chad quiet and your little spy, Matt, is still here, so what the fuck do you want, CK?"  
  
A breathy, cruel laugh sounded in Jared’s ear. "Oh, relax, man. I'm just calling to give you some advice. Matty tells me that you've got a new boyfriend. Jensen, is it?" Jared feels nausea churning away in his stomach but he holds his nerve.  
  
"He has nothing to do with you."  
  
"Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't," CK says. "But if I was you, I'd be careful. Don't go getting too attached."  
  
"If you're talking about him being in prison, then I know about it already. And I don't give a fuck." It takes a long time for CK to respond, and when he does his voice is soft and low. He almost sounds regretful.  
  
"That's not what you ought to be worried about." The line goes dead, leaving Jared confused and with several unanswered questions. Why would he need to be wary of getting attached to Jensen? Given that he’s only really been wary of CK since he reached Hope, he’s not seeing the missing piece of the picture. Unless somehow he’s been linked to what happened in New York and someone is after him. Or maybe CK is just screwing with him, the way he has with the whole Chad situation.  
  
Jensen did just appear out of nowhere and by his own admission he’s been to prison, but Jared can’t help it, he trusts the guy. He rolls his eyes and decides to forget about CK and his bullshit. It’s not like Jensen’s planning on sticking around. Whatever imaginary threat he poses will be a thing of the past a month from now. He pockets his phone and heads back inside, unsurprised to see his mom sitting across from Jensen. Jensen looks a little uncomfortable but he doesn’t have ‘save me’ eyes yet so he assumes that she isn’t saying anything too crazy.  
  
“Your mom was just saying that I should come over for dinner at the weekend,” Jensen says when Jared slides into the booth and settles next to him.  
  
“Yes, Jared,” she says with a smug smile. “I was just telling Jensen here that it’s been a long time since you brought a  _friend_  over for dinner. And you two seem to be getting on extremely well.”  
  
Usually Jared would refuse right away and make up some excuse, but when he glances at Jensen and sees him smiling, he shrugs and turns back to his mom and says, “We’ll be there.”  
  
~  
  
The bar is dead that night, the way it usually is when the high school has a football game. Usually the fathers and grandfathers trade in a night of beer for child-friendly milkshakes and fries at the local fast food joint. And there are trendier places for the younger people to go to, so it’s just him, Jensen, Matt and Ralph.  
  
And Chad.  
  
Jared waits until Jensen’s immersed in something on his phone before he goes over to the booth in the back and sits across from Chad. Chad eyes him carefully before sliding over a thick package. Jared can’t tell what it is by looking at it but he doesn’t touch it. After all this time, Chad’s probably the person that he trusts the least, which is ironic, but nothing screams untrustworthy like a scorned friend.  
  
“It’s all there,” Chad says. “All of it. Just don’t call CK.” Jared grabs the package and sees that it’s stuffed full with cash, and if Chad’s telling the truth, there’s got to be at least twenty grand here. He feels a stab of regret because a selfish part of him wishes that Chad was spending the money, because it would ease his guilty conscience.  
  
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Chad,” he answers solemnly. “I just wanted you to… stop. I get it. You’re pissed at me and I deserve it. But I don’t deserve to be blackmailed over something that  _you_  dragged me into.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you’re on your own now, Jared,” Chad replies. “Matt over there, he’s one of CK’s guys.”  
  
Jared nods. “I know.”  
  
“And you’re okay with him sniffing around like a bad smell?” Chad laughs bitterly. “You’re crazy. You might think that you’re keeping him at arm’s length but Matt’s smart. And he’s here for a reason.”  
  
“Yeah, to spy on me,” Jared says dismissively. “I’m sure that CK is watching all of us.”  
  
Chad shrugs. “He’s not watching me. And the others don’t even have zip codes for him to track down. You’re out here in the open. You don’t have a kid, or anything keeping you here. You know what that makes you?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“A good scapegoat.”  
  
Jared laughs at that. “Oh come on, it’s been five years. They’re not still looking for someone to pin blame on.”  
  
“The last guy they arrested ended up doing jail time,” Chad replies. “And I don’t think he was even involved. You and I both know that CK is always five steps ahead, always planning on who he’s going to scapegoat next. You know that I’m right.”  
  
“Why are you warning me, Chad?” Jared asks. “How can I even believe you when you hate my guts?”  
  
“I don’t hate you,” Chad says. “Yeah, I was pissed at you. Pissed at Sophia but… she finally told me what really happened. I guess I pissed her off enough that she wanted to make me pay for five years but… I can’t blame her. I was a shitty boyfriend.”  
  
 _Yes, you were_ , Jared thinks be he doesn’t voice his opinion.  
  
“What happened?” he asks.  
  
“She found out she was pregnant and tried to call me but, as you know, I was hanging out with those German twins. So, apparently she called you over and you got really drunk because you were doing double shots because she couldn’t drink, and you feel asleep and…. boom, I walked in on that.”  
  
Jared’s ashamed to say that he still can’t remember  _any_  of that. “So she’s been lying the entire time. About everything?” He’s not angry. Not really. It’s not like she ever made him believe that she was pregnant with his kid. That would have been really messed up.  
  
“Yeah…” Chad says wistfully. “She feels really bad about it, if that helps. She said some bullshit about us needing to be honest with each other we want this whole co-parenting deal to work.”  
  
“How  _is_  your kid?” Jared asks for what feels like the umpteenth time.  
  
“He’s alright,” Chad says and for the first time his eyes actually light up. “He’s growing pretty fast. I just wish that I could see him more.”  
  
“What’s stopping you?”  
  
“You’ve seen me over the past few months, Jared,” Chad replies. “I’ve been really messed up over the past five years. Flaked out on more important days than I can remember and it makes me sick to my stomach. I know that the whole situation is my fault though, so I can only blame myself. Not you. Not Sophia. So I’m making amends.” He gestures at the package.  
  
“That’s… good,” Jared says slowly. “That’s really good.”  
  
Chad gives him a strange look as he stands up. “It’s great that you’re okay, Jared. Can I give you some advice? Stop hiding yourself away in this place. It makes you an easy target. You’re predictable; always in one place. Your friends and family are here. This is the worst place that you could be if shit ever hit the fan.”  
  
Jared’s got his answer locked and loaded but Chad walks away, not stopping once to look back. In some ways Chad could be right. He might just be a sitting duck here and days, weeks or even hours away from being carted off into a prison cell but…  _Hope_  is home. It’s the one place where he has control of his life and that’s more important to him than anything. CK could pick any moment to drop Jared right into the NYPD’s lap and he’d go willingly if they came for him; a life on the run doesn’t sound like it’d be fun. He doubts that they’d ever give his name up. He knows too much, stuff that Chad never knew about, and CK can go and fuck himself. The phone calls and messages are nothing compared to just how monumental Jared could fuck things up for him. Matt’s nothing. And, fuck it, he’s done watching over his shoulder all the time, done watching the bar like a hawk. Done.  
  
“Hey, Matt?” he calls as he makes his way back over to the counter, stopping next to where Jensen is sitting at the bar as Matt cleans glasses. “Do you mind locking up? I’m taking the night off.” Matt looks surprised for a brief moment and his eyes stray towards the package in Jared’s hands. He nods, and Jared gives him a bright, fake smile.  
  
“I know that this place is kind of quiet,” Jensen says, “but are you feeling okay? From what I’ve seen, since when does Jared Padalecki take nights off?”  
  
“Yeah,” Matt says coldly. “Since when.” Jared winks at Matt and beckons for Jensen to join him in the back.  
  
Suddenly not giving a fuck seems like the best idea he’s had in a while.  
  
~  
  
Apart from the bar and a few other restaurants, there isn’t much by the way of nightlife in Hope. There’s the movie theatre, but it has two screens and is more of a high school hangout than somewhere to genuinely watch a movie. Or make out with his friend/hook up. So, they end up buying a caseload of beer and going back to the house. It’s only when they get inside that Jared realises that they’ve been kind of inseparable ever since they slept together. Jared doesn’t even spend this much time with Sandy and she’s annoyingly good at worming her way into his house and inventing mandatory plans just so he doesn’t turn into a ‘couch potato’.  
  
Anyway, the realisation doesn’t affect him the way he thinks it should. He’s always maintained that he’s not going to go  _there_  with anyone. No friends past the ones he has. No hooking up with the same dude. No… feelings. He thinks about the swoop in his stomach when he sees Jensen, the way he feels Jensen’s laugh before he hears it, the way Jensen’s hands feel on his skin, the vibrancy of those green eyes, and concludes that he’s failed epically on that last one. Jared at least knows that Jensen isn’t staying. He’s alluded to leaving numerous times, confessed that he loves being out on the road more than he ever loved his stuffy office. A few days ago Jared thought that Jensen was running away from his problems – and maybe he is – but he’s still  _doing_  something. Something that he’s always wanted to do. Part of Jared wishes he could do the same; just get on the road and see where it takes him. However, he knows that his place is here.  
  
“Hey, so don’t you have a wedding to sort out?” Jensen asks. “Or are you just going to leave Matt to it?”  
  
“We went over it yesterday,” Jared says. He’s sorted out the decoration situation, so right now all that needs to be done is setting the bar up on Saturday. “Are you volunteering to help us set up?”  
  
“Hell no,” Jensen says. “I think I’ve been to enough weddings to last a life time. I was thinking of staying here and catching up on some emails and stuff. You don’t mind if I use your computer do you?”  
  
“I can’t even tempt you with the open bar?” Jared asks.  
  
“I’ll try and stop by but… I should probably get to those emails before my mom starts wondering if I’m still alive,” Jensen says with an eye roll. He doesn’t talk about his family that much, and while Jared doesn’t want to pry, he is kind of curious. Given that Jensen’s no stranger to asking personal questions, he decides to give in to his curiosity this once.  
  
“So… what’s the deal with your family?” he asks. “Are they unsupportive, or…?”  
  
Jensen shrugs. “They’re… family. They got me the best lawyers, came to court every day, but they’ll never get over the fact that for six months, my home was a prison cell. Suddenly, all the good stuff I’ve done counts for nothing and they think that repeatedly telling me that I’ve ruined my life is helpful.”  
  
“You haven’t ruined your life,” Jared says. Jensen looks upset so he tries to change the subject, quickly. “Anyway, if you make it to Sunday’s dinner with my parents, they’ll probably want to adopt you and keep you in Hope forever. And they won’t judge you - unless you don’t like the pie, in which case they will judge you forever.” Jensen smiles weakly, and while it’s not the reaction that Jared’s hoping for, it’s something.  
  
“Do you mind if we just skip dinner and get straight to the drinking?” Jensen asks. “We can get something later if we get hungry.” Jared’s hungry now but he’s not about to say no when Jensen sounds so morose.  
  
“Sure,” he says. “Hey, if I can dig out some ice cream, maybe we can ‘ _Eat, Pray, Love_ ’ our way through our feelings.” This time Jensen’s laugh is a hundred percent genuine, and Jared smiles a secret smile as he goes to grab the beer.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
It’s late – or early if Jensen goes by the actual time – as Jared lets them into the diner. Jensen’s not sure why he didn’t accept a lift from Jim back home during closing time (and he’s definitely not sure why he seems to want to be wherever Jared is at all times. Either way, it’s not like he sleeps much these days anyway. Too many nightmares, too many thoughts circling around in his brain until his head hurts so much that he’s useless the next day. Plus his sleeping patterns have been messed up since prison. Jared’s appear to be even more messed up than his despite him taking the previous night off.  
  
“It’s a little late to be setting up this place, isn’t it?” Jensen remarks as they head towards the edge of the building. It’s a relatively standard diner, regular booths, plastic red seats et cetera but the kitchen? The kitchen is a work of art. It’s all stainless steel alloy, along with a six burner stove that Jensen wishes he’d had at his apartment. The cabinets and compartments are shiny, silver colour and in pristine condition. Not that Jensen expects the kitchen to be in a scruffy mess or something but he’s not expecting a state of art kitchen. Jared must catch him looking because he smiles wryly.  
  
“My parents came into some money a couple of years ago,” he explains. “They picked fixing this place up over going on a cruise. They love this place.”  
  
“Huh,” Jensen muses as he takes in the sight around him. Once he gets past the beauty of the kitchen he realises that there’s a lot of dirty pans and pots that need cleaning up. “You were not kidding when you said that there’d be a lot to do. Damn.”  
  
“My parents went down to visit my aunt and they won’t be back until morning, so I offered to come over and clean-up for them. It’s the least I can do,” Jared says with a shrug. “You can just wait if you want.”  
  
Jensen scoffs. “Hey, I might not be the most domestic person but I can still load a dishwasher.”  
  
Jared grins at him as he strips off his jacket and dumps it onto a vacant space on the counter. “Dishwasher’s broken, hotshot.” Jensen isn’t surprised when his look of bafflement startles a loud laugh from Jared.  
  
“Alright then, show me where the gloves are and we’ll get started.” Jared looks surprised for a few seconds before it melts away into what looks like genuine appreciation.  
  
“How about I wash and you dry?” Jensen acquiesces quickly, not wanting to get into his elaborate hand cream routine. He really has no filter when it comes to Jared; there’s none of the usual distrust he feels around people he doesn’t know and he’s man enough to admit that it scares him.  
  
He’s so lost in his thoughts that it literally takes a fistful of water in the face to snap him out of it. Jared’s got a mysterious glint in eye and Jensen contemplates grabbing the long handled sponge he’s using and shoving it down his shirt. The small smile on Jared’s face stops him and just for a moment, Jensen really wants to see the other man let himself go. Sure they’ve been in various states of sobriety around each other and had sex but…Jensen wants to see  _something_. Some kind of freeness about Jared. So he discards the napkin he’s been using and scoops up water from the sink with his palm and lobs it at Jared.  
  
Jared wrinkles his nose as he stands there, hands dripping wet as soap suds slide down his face. “You could have at least had the decency to watch the hair.” Jensen guffaws at that and splashes Jared again, wanting to see what Jared will let him get away with before he seeks revenge.  
  
“But you look so good when you’re wet,” he replies. Jared’s eyes darken and he realises that his words are a double entendre. He’s in the middle of another series of overarching thoughts when soapy water hits him again and this time he can feel it sliding down his back and sticking to his shirt. Jared backs away quickly, tongue sticking out as he moves. Jensen looks to his right, catches sight of where a bunch of condiment bottles are stashed in a tray on the middle of the kitchen where the huge room length counter is and he grabs the mustard. Jared’s eyes widen comically.  
  
“You wouldn’t,” he says. “I will make you  _walk_  back ho--to my house if you get mustard on me.” He’s backed himself into a corner now and Jensen takes his time making his way over, slowly popping the cap open. Jared’s laughing despite himself and the sound warms Jensen’s heart. It’s been a long, long time since he’s done something stupid – besides the whole motorcycle road trip thing anyway – and he knows that Jared’s probably the only person that can unlock this side of him. The one person that he could maybe fully trust. Spraying him with mustard seems kind of cruel. He drops his hand and regrets his decision two minutes later when he finds that his soft green shirt is covered in barbeque sauce and Jared’s cackling hysterically.  
  
“You’re a big baby, you know that?” he says as he shakes his head fondly.  
  
Jared grins brightly. “Is that the sound of defeat, friend? Sure sounds like it.” He sets the bottle down and their friendly banter falls into a lull. Jared’s smile fades and it’s obvious that he wants to say something but he doesn’t. So Jensen says something instead.  
  
“I don’t usually do this,” he starts. “I don’t fuck where I eat or even fuck the same guy twice—“  
  
Jared cuts him off with a raised hand. “As much as I’d like to bend you over the counter, we’re not doing anything here. My parents  _work_  here every day. Just. No.”  
  
Jensen chuckles. “Not what I was about to say, though I do like the part about you bending me over the counter. I just. I don’t do repeats. Not since…before. I had a steady boyfriend and I---anyway, it doesn’t matter, I just…I want to say that I treasure you.”  
  
“You treasure me?” Jared repeats with a teasing glint in his eye. Jensen stifles a sigh and tries to not to think too hard about why he sounds like a teenage girl. He’s not good at any of this relationship (or in their case  _non_ -relationship) talk, he never knows what to say and usually just ends up sticking around out of some kind of obligation only to realise that he’s been wasting his time on someone who doesn’t care enough to make them figure their shit out. He doesn’t even know what the hell he’s trying to say but he feels like he should say  _something_.  
  
“I  _like_  you and I…being here has been really good. It’s nice to just hang out with someone and not need to watch every movement or monitor every word I say,” he adds when Jared starts to look wart. “And you  _are_  a good lay, so there’s that.”  
  
“There is that,” Jared retorts with a crooked smile. “But I…uh, I like you too.” Jared’s answer might not have a lot to it, but it’s the look in his eyes that catches Jensen by surprise. There’s something intense, a powerful storm of emotion directed at Jensen and…he’s captivated by it. He wants to say  _fuck it, let’s do this for real_  but he can’t.  
  
“Does this still hurt?” Jared reaches out and softly strokes the area of Jensen’s chin with the road rash on it. It’s fading slowly, though Jensen learned the hard way that trying to shave with it on his face was a total bitch. He shakes his head, too afraid to answer because the cogs in his brain are still turning. He’s still trying to tell himself why all of this is a bad idea. He’s no good for anybody, not when he’s so jacked up about prison and life in general. However the thought of having to say goodbye to Jared arouses a pain in his chest because if there’s one thing that he’s sure of - one thing that he’ll stand by – it’s that he  _can’t_ stay.  
  
~  
  
On Friday morning, Jensen breaks down and calls Danneel, one of his old friends from the first company he worked at in New York. He’s only spoken to her a handful of times since he got out of the jail, but that’s a handful more than he’s talked to his other friends so he really has no choice. He needs to talk to someone about Jared. Tall, hot, mysterious Jared who’s slowly ruining his life with his killer body and breath stealing kisses and---okay, well, objectionable qualities aside, he does actually care for Jared. He cares for him a lot and that’s the problem. He doesn’t trust easily but he trusts Jared. He doesn’t tell anyone his life story, too ashamed that they’ll judge him for being some kind of convict but… Jared’s never judged him because of that. And it shouldn’t matter what some stranger thinks, but Jensen knows that Jared’s not one anymore. He’s a friend - a friend that he has romantic feelings for. Shit.  
  
Danneel, who hasn’t changed in the slightest, attacks him with a barrage of questions as soon as she answers. Where’s he been? Is he lying in a pool of his own vomit somewhere? Does he need money? Does he need a new leg? Is it time for his intervention?  
  
“Uh, I’m freakin’ peachy,” he says before she can squeeze out another question. “Can we just skip the part where I was in prison, then out of it, and just pretend that things are normal and I’m coming to you for advice.”  
  
Danneel’s answer is blunt. “No. But I will hear you out. I’m assuming it’s about a boy? That’s the only thing you ever ask for advice about. You’re not dating that loser, Ben are you?” Jensen waits for the usual flinch he gets when he hears that name but there’s nothing. He’s glad. Ben left him high and dry and rotting in prison the day he got arrested because saving face was more important to him than saving his boyfriend.  
  
“No, not Ben,” he says. “Not anyone. Just there’s this guy that I really like. As a friend. And we’ve clicked on other levels and hooked up but I genuinely like him and, when I leave, I want to maybe see if I can keep in touch with him. But I’m not sure I should. I’m not even sure if we should continue what we’re doing.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Because I don’t want him to ask me to stay.”  
  
“You mean that you don’t want to be able to not leave,” Danneel retorts. “Aww, you like him!”  
  
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose. “I literally just said that I did. The question is, what do I do?”  
  
“Well, if you feel like having sex will only make things harder, then I guess you should stop,” Danneel says. “Just make sure you don’t fuck up the friendship part in the process.” That’s reasonable enough advice and he takes it all in and commits it to memory for later.  
  
“Thanks, Dani,” he says gently. “How are you doing?”  
  
“Meh,” she replies. “Same old bullshit. Work, work and, oh, more work! We’re all missing you here, by the way. I get why you’re on your little cross country trip but not everyone is an asshole like Ben. You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
 _No_ , Jensen thinks,  _I didn’t._ And now it’s just a matter of getting over it all and finding a way not to screw things up with Jared.  
  
 _~_  
  
Not sleeping with Jared is just as difficult as it sounds, especially with Jared’s new and sudden carefree attitude to life. Take today for instance - it’s Friday and the bar’s closed for its transformation for the wedding reception the following day and Jensen’s watched as Jared straight up lied through a phone call with Weatherly about how much progress he’s made. He then watched as Jared leaned over to kiss him – and okay, so maybe he’s not innocent in Jared shirking off his duties. He’s paying for it now though because he’s stuck hanging up an assortment of silver and white coloured decorations while Jared and Matt scrub the entire place clean and the other bar staff deal with the deliveries of champagne flutes and food. The wedding cake is a huge monstrous mess that Jensen stares at as it’s carried past him.  
  
“Shouldn’t that thing be in a box?” he asks Jared.  
  
Jared snorts. “I have no idea. It’s not like I can get married here so my intel on weddings is non-existent.”  
  
“Do you want to get married some day?” The question breaks free before Jensen can squash it and he rues his big mouth internally. He’s supposed to be pulling away from Jared, not trying to find out his innermost desires (or non-desires).  
  
“I used to want to be like my parents, you know, partner, a couple of kids, white picket fence,” Jared says wistfully. “But I don’t think I’m cut out for it, really. I bet you’ve already planned your day from start to finish, right down to the colour of the napkins. Now that we know each other a little better, can I tell you that you are seriously the neatest person I’ve ever lived with? I don’t know if it’s a good thing or if you have a problem.” He notices that Jared’s attempting to change the subject but, like always, he’s not going to back down that easily.  
  
“It’s definitely a good thing,” Jensen says. “Hygiene is important. Why don’t you think you’re cut out for marriage?”  
  
Jared squirts more cleaning fluid onto the bar top and runs the cloth over a spot he cleaned five minutes ago. “I’m not good at being with other people. I’ve fucked up every single relationship I’ve ever been in – and they were barely even relationships. I think I’m just too selfish to settle down.”  
  
“You’re not fucking this one up.” Seriously, Jensen might need to locate an actual muzzle. It’s as if his brain to mouth filter has taken a fuckin’ vacation.  
  
Jared’s hand stills and he turns to look at Jensen, his brow raised in question. “Does this really count as a relationship?”  
  
“It’s a form of one. This is a… casual, no strings attached, relationship.” And there goes the whole  _not having sex_ thing. Not that he actually stuck to it, but now he’s not only told Jared that he treasures him, they’re now in a  _relationship_. Oddly enough, he’s not freaking out as much as he should be.  
  
Jared laughs at that and Jensen feels embarrassed because that  _is_  what they are; it’s all they can be. They both know that. Right? Although… they’ve never actually defined their ‘relationship’, it’s just been a lot of great sex accompanied by the kind of hanging out that Jensen hasn’t done since he was in college. Maybe they ought to talk about things.  
  
The memory of Jim’s text from this morning still lingers on his mind. The part’s arrived and his bike should be fixed by the start of the next week. Which is the day after dinner with Jared’s parents – and  _that_  is another can of worms because he’s never done the whole schmoozing parents thing before.  
  
“Hey, are you okay?” Jared’s voice cuts into his thoughts and Jensen blinks and looks up at him. “You’re not offended are you?”  
  
Jensen stares at him blankly, not wanting to admit that he wasn’t listening.  
  
“I mean, we are kind of like friends with benefits, aren’t we?” Oh.  _Oh_. And yeah, that’s probably a blunter way of putting it. Friends with benefits. That’s exactly what they are.

  
So why does Jensen feel weird about it? Why does it feel like that label denigrates their…  _relationship_?  
  
He’s starting to think that it’s going to harder to walk away than it should be.

 

 

 

  


 

  
  
The wedding goes by without a hitch. Or, well, it does when the bride actually turns up. Weatherly gives him a huge bonus and showers the town with his usual smatter of gifts (that they’ll pay for later when he needs a favour) and a butt load of arrogance. The bride, Jessica, seems to be happy though and that’s what counts. That could be down to the fact that she’s wasted but it’s more happy wasted than ‘ _what the fuck have I done?_ ’ wasted, so he congratulates her and goes to find Jensen.  
  
“Oh, Jared, there you are!” Jensen says when Jared catches up with him. He’s standing next to Jared’s former math teacher, Samantha Ferris. He smiles at her awkwardly – her class was never his favourite. “Sam here was just telling me that you once got your head stuck in railings on a school trip. A trip to a  _farm_.”  
  
“Of course she was,” Jared replies with a strained smile. Ms Ferris’s one of the more judgemental townspeople; she takes solace in the fact that some of her students don’t ever make it out of Hope. He knows this because every time she has one too many gin and tonics, the rant comes flying out and he’s stuck listening to her when he has to drive her home. He’s fairly certain that she has some kind of drinking problem.  
  
“Did she tell you about the time that she puked all over me at the Christmas party?” Jared says with a sweet smile. “That was kind of funny, too.” Jensen looks between two of them and smiles awkwardly and seems to realise that there’s nothing he can say to diffuse the situation. Ms Ferris gives him a dirty look and he’s sure that he hears her mumble  _asshole_  as she walks away.  
  
“She must be the only person in this town that doesn’t like you,” Jensen remarks as they watch her departing figure. “I guess she has bad taste.”  
  
Not wanting to get into a conversation about Ms Ferris of all people, Jared suggests that they leave everything in Matt’s capable hands and clean up tomorrow. Right now, he just wants to claim his reward for making it through yet another wedding that’s stirred up feelings he never wants to experience. Those dark, fleeting moments where he feels like he’s swimming underwater and drowning in this town. The feeling of isolation, fear of never finding someone that likes him enough to stay. It’s stupid because this is  _his_  town, it’s where he grew up, it’s home and… feeling confined is totally normal. Along with wanting to be loved. Jared knows that, but he finds that it’s easier to just ignore everything. It might not ever go away, but he can pretend.  
  
He resigned himself to this life the second he decided to party hard instead of studying, and in the milliseconds in which he stole the answers to that paper. And if he’s being honest with himself, a lot of guilt stems from that moment. Chad’s the only one that knows what happened; his parents still think he dropped out. He’s been lying to them for  _ten_  years and still, he doesn’t think he can face their disapproval. It’s almost like he’s that frightened eighteen year old again, like he hasn’t progressed since that point. Yet at the same time, he feels older than his twenty eight years. He feels like he’s lived a whole fucking lifetime. And for some reason, for the first time in a long time, there’s a ray of light – Jensen. Sure, he has Sandy and a few other friends but he’s not himself with them, not fully. He can’t afford to screw up any more friendships. He  _won’t_. That means that things with Jensen have to end on a good note, and given Jensen’s weird reaction to his ‘friends with benefits’ comment, Jared knows that it’s time to drop the benefits.  
  
“You look like you’re going through some serious emotional turmoil,” Jensen says as they walk to Jared’s truck. “What’s on your mind?”  
  
Jared sighs. “Us. What are we doing, Jensen? Earlier when I tried to define what we were, you seemed… off.” Jensen’s face darkens and Jared can tell that he’s been just as conflicted; that the same hints of doubt have been lingering in his mind. It makes him feel better, but at the same time one of them has to figure this shit out before it gets loud and explodes in his face.  
  
~  
  
Jared’s words come back to bite him that same night. He’s been downstairs for a while now, waiting for Jensen to come back so they can watch the recorded game on the DVR, but it’s been almost an hour and Jensen’s a no show. By the time Jared goes up to change he’s finally starting to feel an ache in his muscles and he assumes that Jensen’s in a similar state due to him kindly helping out. He smiles to himself as he reaches the guest room, though it fades as he sees that the door is ajar. The room is empty and the bathroom door is open, leaving only his own bedroom, which he should have checked first.  
  
What he sees when he opens the door sends his heart plummeting. Jensen’s sitting on his bed and looking down at a small object in his hand. While Jared’s not close enough to see it properly, he knows exactly what it is. It’s this stupid, tiny, desk globe that he swiped that day when he used the flash drive CK sent him to hack into accounts and transfer money. He hadn’t meant to take the globe, but security was seconds away and he’d dropped all of his shit causing a whole slew of things to fall off the desk and the globe was one of them. He’s not sure why he kept it. Or why Jensen’s staring at it like his entire world is ending.  
  
“Hey, where did you get that?” he asks softly. He decides to tread lightly just in case Jensen goes nuclear on him because he does look pretty upset. And while that’s not excuse for him to go through Jared’s private belongs, he can cut him some slack. It’s been a long day.  
  
Jensen looks up at him finally and the utter blankness of his eyes surprises Jared. What the fuck is going on? “I should be asking you that, Jared, because this is mine. It has my initials written in permanent marker on the bottom. The stain from when I spilled coffee all over it. The dent from when I threw it against a wall. How the hell is it  _here_  in your house?”  
  
 _Fuck._  
  
Jared could lie. After all it’s been five years. He could have picked up the globe from anywhere, anyone, he just… he can’t be the one who basically confined Jensen to jail. He can’t be but he  _is_. Tears prickle at the corner of his eyes but he ignores them. So much for not fucking this up.  
  
“I picked it up in an office around five years ago,” he admits. Jensen deflates visibly and the globe falls out of his fingers and onto the floor. His hands are shaking and Jared wants to go over there more than anything, but he doubts that Jensen would appreciate it right now.  
  
“My office,” Jensen says. “And what were you doing in my office?” Jared can still lie his way out of his, he can say he was with the cleaning company or… or… something. Or he could tell Jensen the truth because he’s basically been fucking up the guy’s life for five whole years, unintentional or not. He knew that someone had gone to prison and he never stopped to find out who it was, or where they were. He was too busy, here, wallowing in a deep pit of self-loathing with a healthy side of self-pity.  
  
“I’m so sorry, Jensen,” Jared says, ashamed at the way his voice cracks. He doesn’t have any right to be upset, but he is. He’s upset because he really likes Jensen, he might even…  _love_  him and now it turns out that he betrayed him years before they met. After all of the emotions of this past week, how the hell is he supposed to deal with that?  
  
Jensen’s tone is cold and hard. “What were you doing?” His face is completely passive, and if Jared wasn’t so distraught he’d be worried because Jensen’s never looked like that before; he’s never been closed off. He’s always been open, so, so open, whereas Jared skirted around facts and gave him the Cliff notes. He’s regretting that now because maybe if he’d taken that full leap and just confessed all, maybe Jensen wouldn’t be here and maybe his heart wouldn’t feel as if it has burst into two, in the most painful way possible.  
  
“I worked for this guy, he called himself CK,” Jared explains. “He gave me an address and told me to extract information from your computer. Passwords, security codes and whatnot. And then he gave me two bank account numbers and left me instructions on what do with the money. I swear that I had no idea who you were, or who anyone was. CK asked and I did what I was told.  
  
“CK?” Jensen picks up that little gem first. “Is that a code name or something?”  
  
“It supposedly stands for Clark Kent. I never saw him face to face but some say he looks a lot like—“  
  
Jared cuts himself off as Jensen stands up and hurls the globe across the bedroom. It hits the full length mirror, leaving a shattered pattern all over the glass. Jared can’t help it, he takes a step forward only to be halted by Jensen taking several steps back.  
  
“Don’t come anywhere near me,” he growls, and then to himself he seems to say, “That son of a bitch, Welling. It was him who stole the money. He’s been running this whole operation the entire time. God, he must have just been laughing at me. That’s great isn’t it? What a fucking wonderful life this is turning out to be? My best friend is a lying cheat who set me up, my ex-boyfriend couldn’t handle the shame, my family? Well, they act like I fucking murdered someone, and you? The guy I’ve been going crazy over for the past few days. The one person who hasn’t judged me - is nothing but a fraud. A liar.”  
  
“Jensen, please, I can explain!” Jensen looks at him expectantly and Jared freezes up because he  _has_  explained. He did what he was told and… all he can do is apologise for that. He can tell Jensen a million things but the reality is that he already knows who framed him. He knows that Jared was the one that actually made things happen so… what’s left to explain? Nothing.  
  
“You can’t even come up with anything can you?” Jensen sneers. “No wonder you live your life the way you do. How many other people did you steal from? How many innocent people ended up in  _jail_  because you were following orders?”  
  
The flare of anger hits Jared by surprise because he can’t take the rap for everything. He  _can’t_. Nothing he did was to hurt anyone or get people sent to prison, none of it, and by the time he found out about Jensen (not knowing him at the time), it was too late for him to do anything. He couldn’t go to the cops and… he was hopeless, basically, useless.  
  
“I did what I had to do, Jensen,” Jared says. “No. I’m not proud of it and I regret it every single day but… the guys that I got caught up with were sketchy, and every day until I got the fuck out, I had to make a choice - survive or get royally fucked over. I picked the first one.”  
  
“That’s bullshit,” Jensen retorts. “Tom might be a grand prize jerk but he’s not some kind of mob runner.”  
  
“No offence, but considering that he managed to pull the wool over your eyes  _and_  have you imprisoned for a theft that you didn’t commit, I’d say that indicates that you don’t know your buddy Tom at all.” Jared doesn’t know why he’s being so…  _snarky_. No matter how angry Jensen is, he’s still in the right here and Jared isn’t. So the fist in the face is probably what he should expect. Even as the pain flares up around his eye, he doesn’t take his gaze off Jensen, who’s grimacing slightly as he shakes out his hand. Jared steps forward again and grabs it in his. He’s broken up enough bar fights to know when a hand is broken, and a quick glance tells him Jensen’s looks fine. It might swell up a little but that’s normal. Jensen yanks his hand back, snapping Jared back to the cruel reality.  
  
He’s the guy that ruined Jensen’s life.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
The worst part of finding out that Jared’s from his past is that, for a brief moment, the romantic side of Jensen thought that maybe it was fate. He thought that that globe was a sign that they’d crossed paths once and that they would continue to do so. But then he got to thinking about the last time he actually saw the damn thing and he realised that it was around the time all of the money went missing from the company accounts. Still, he convinced himself that there had to be a logical reason - maybe Jared had found it somewhere, or maybe the police took it into evidence and misplaced it somehow. Maybe maybe maybe, turned out to be not what he needed, and he started thinking about Jared’s life in New York City. The fact that he moved back to Hope five years ago and the way he somehow had enough money to buy a damn bar. Where did a college dropout who’d gone rogue get that kind of start-up money? That thought took him back to the stolen money, and voila.  
  
Here they fucking are. Jensen’s got a throbbing hand and there’s a fresh bruise blooming under Jared’s eye. They’re bruised and damaged just like their _relationship_  or whatever the hell they can call it now. It’s all over. Done. Jensen wishes that his bike was ready so he could just take off and leave Jared behind. He wishes that he doesn’t feel the way he does about Jared because, even now, even in the face of everything, he still fucking likes this guy. And deep down, he knows that Jared didn’t set out to harm him on purpose and that the real villain is Tom, but there are several things that really rankle him, most important of which is the fact that Jared lives this stupid closed off, shell of a life simply because he doesn’t want to own up to what he did. Though, given what Jared’s saying about Tom, maybe that’s the best thing and Jensen doesn’t know how the hell to deal with that either.  
  
“I deserved that,” Jared says in a shaky voice. “And you deserve a lot better than me and all of my mess, but you’ve taught me one thing, Jensen - that keeping things inside only ends up hurting people in the long run. You, myself, my family.”  
  
Jensen laughs bitterly. “Oh well, that’s great for you.” He’s not sure why he’s still here, giving Jared the time of day. He wills his feet to move but he’s rooted to the spot and secretly willing Jared to say the right words, to say something that’ll savage this. Make them right again. And Jared does say something.  
  
“I know that I have  _no_  right to ask this but… if I’m going to tell you everything, and to make this up to you then, I… need you to stay. Here. In Hope. I need you to let me make things right.”  
  
“I’m not staying,” Jensen says. “I wasn’t going to before and I’m certainly not going to now, Jared, and the only reason why I’m still standing here is because I have nowhere to go.” Jared’s crying silently, tears running freely down his face as he stares at Jensen with watery eyes. He knows how much it must have taken to ask that but it’s too little, too late. They’re not meant to be.  
  
They’re… nothing.  
  
~  
  
Eventually Jared leaves Jensen in the room and doesn’t come back up. He thinks he hears the faint sound of the television but he can’t bring himself to care. He just crawls into Jared’s bed, buries himself under the covers and breathes in Jared’s scent.  _I could have loved him_ , he thinks. Maybe he already does but it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters.  
  
Time seems to pass slowly and Jensen feels like he’s wading through thick molasses. He doesn’t cry but his head hurts all the same. He keeps seeing Jared’s red-rimmed eyes and thinking  _at least he’s sorry_  because Tom, his best friend of ten years, wasn’t even sorry as he grinned at Jensen through the plastic pane in the visitors room and told him that sometimes people had to just ‘take one for the team’. There wasn’t as much as a call when he got to prison. No texts, or email, no apology, just silence.  
  
He’s still wide awake when Jared comes into the room. He’s making an effort to be quiet but only really succeeding in making more noise, and Jensen’s calling out to him before he realises what he’s doing.  
  
“Jared…” he lets the name hang in the air and watches as Jared turns to face him slowly. Jensen has no idea what he’s doing, just knows that he’s tail-spinning. Has been since he left prison. “Come here.”  
  
Jared moves slowly, apprehension written all over his face, and while Jensen doesn’t blame him, he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s hurt and there’s only one thing he wants to do. He kisses Jared hard, ignoring all of his questioning glances and sad eyes. He breathes a sigh of relief when Jared seems to get on board because rejection would only make this day worse and, truly, it’s bad enough that his way of processing includes  _sleeping_ with the (new) enemy. However, when his thoughts melt away, all reservations fly out of the window and soon clothes are flying from the bed onto the floor and Jensen’s kissing Jared so hard that his lips sting but all he cares about is the friction of skin on skin. Jared tries to break their kisses with words and stupid queries but Jensen’s tired of hearing him speak. He pulls off and ditches his pants, wondering if there’s some irony to be found in the fact that he ‘prepared’ himself in the bathroom earlier. He shrugs the thought off around the same time that he’s yanking Jared’s pants off and slicking his cock, ignoring the way Jared hisses at his touch. Jensen wastes no time in centering himself above Jared and sliding down quickly until he feels full, like he’s about to crack into a million tiny pieces. He pushes himself up and down and does his best to block Jared out, but he can’t. He can’t, and that fucks him up even more. After a few minutes he pulls off and flips them both over so that he’s lying on his back and Jared’s on top.  
  
“You know what to do,” he says through gritted teeth. Jared’s giving him this  _look_  and if he wasn’t so pissed off, he’d try to kiss the anguish away and tell him that everything’s going to be okay, but it isn’t, and right now he just wants a quick, fast, hard fuck. He nods slightly but Jared still looks unsure so he has to take matters into his own hands. He pulls Jared down and kisses him gently, creating what he hopes is a false sense of security because Jared might be a fraud and a liar but he’s not a mean person, he wouldn’t go through with this if he didn’t think that Jensen wanted to.  
  
“Just do it,” he murmurs and, thankfully, this time Jared listens.  
  
~  
  
Morning comes, bringing a headache and a night full of interesting memories with it. The most vivid one being Jared pounding into him so hard that he swears he saw stars, followed by the almost violent make-out that occurred. Jensen’s not sure what got into him. Well, Jared did, obviously, but mentally he’s not sure if having sex with Jared was the right thing do. Especially after Jared asked him to say because his mind is made up. He will do the dinner with Jared’s parents because he’s a man of his word, but after that, he’s done with Jared. The second his bike is road-ready, he plans to take off and drive for a fucking week, a month, however long it takes for him to get all of this out of his system. He’ll go somewhere Jared can’t get under his skin, a place where all of the faces are new ones and he doesn’t have to worry about yet another person betraying him.  
  
Jared’s waiting at the kitchen table after Jensen’s showered and gotten dressed, and to say that he looks like hell would be an understatement. His eyes are still red and his usually voluptuous and soft looking hair looks limp and lifeless. There are scratches and bites over his neck and Jensen flushes furiously at his handiwork. Yep. Last night was definitely a huge mistake.  
  
“I spoke to Matt and the wedding party at the top of the bar should be gone by lunchtime, so you can move in there if you want,” Jared says in lieu of a greeting. “Let me know what you want to do.”  
  
“So you want me to leave,” Jensen says blankly. He sits across from Jared and looks right at him. Jared meets his gaze dead on and shakes his head.  
  
“I don’t want you to leave but it might be best if you do,” he says. “I fucked up and you’re leaving in a few days. We don’t need to make it harder than it needs to be.”  
  
The selfish part of Jensen wants to stay just to spite Jared and he wouldn’t be sitting in his room and reading a fucking book, no, he’d be right there in Jared’s room, showing him exactly what he’d be missing when Jensen’s gone. The more rational part of him knows that he should take the out that Jared’s given him, try and regain some normalcy by putting some distance between them. Option number two is what he should do but there was a lesson that he’d learned in prison, it wasn’t necessarily a good one but it was a lesson all the same - being rational got you shanked and snitches got stiches. Jensen’s already been knifed in his heart, he’s already got a large festering wound that he’s trying to use his mind to repair and he’s tired of always being the one who’s hurting.  
  
Fuck being rational.  
  
“You don’t want me to leave and I don’t want to leave,” he says mock-cheerily. “So it looks like I’m staying. Oh, by the way, what time are your parents expecting us?”  
  
Jared frowns. “You still want to go?”  
  
“I don’t break my word,” Jensen says bluntly. “I said I would go, so I’m going.”  
  
“Six,” Jared says with an audible swallow. “They want us there for six.”  
  
“Great,” Jensen says with a glance at his watch. “That leaves us with seven hours to spare. Got any ideas on what we can do to pass the time?” At this point, Jensen’s willing to accept that his anger is turning him into a crazy sex-fiend because it’s either that or feeling sorry for himself, and when faced with those two choices, there’s only going to be one winner.  
  
“I’ve got to go and clean up the bar,” Jared says in a strained voice. Jensen smirks at him as he leans across the table so that his face is right next to Jared’s.  
  
“Get Matt to do it,” he whispers. “It’s not like Tom cares about you that much. He left you high and dry like he leaves everybody.”  
  
“Jensen…” Jensen silences Jared with a kiss. He can’t help thinking about their first kiss not too far away in the doorway and he tenses up and pulls back.  
  
“Let’s go up to your room.”  
  
“I don’t think we should,” Jared tries but Jensen shuts him with a finger on his lips. He uses his other hand to palm Jared’s crotch, snorting when he feels Jared’s erection though the soft fabric of his sweatpants.  
  
“We probably shouldn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that we both want to,” he says. “Maybe it’s time that you stopped being a coward.”  
  
This time Jared kisses him first.  
  
~  
  
They’re sitting in Jared’s truck for a while before they set off. Jensen can tell that Jared wants to say something, and while he’s not particularly interested, part of him wishes that they could just sit here and stew in their feelings. He’s isn’t sure how he should feel at this point - there’s still anger, still a sense of betrayal and he’s confused. Dinner with Jared parents probably isn’t a good idea right now, but he doesn’t know how to get out of it without making it seem as if he’s so cut up that he can’t fake a smile for a couple of hours.  
  
“We don’t have to go,” Jared says, his voice a loud and stark change to the silence that came before it. “I can tell my parents that I’m not feeling well and you can… do whatever you want to do.” Jensen imagines that the ‘ _I don’t care’_ is silent because it’s obvious that Jared doesn’t give a crap.  
  
“I’m good,” Jensen replies. “Or are you worried that I’m going to spill all of your dark secrets?” He watches as Jared’s hands tense up on the steering wheel and feels an almost childish glee. Jared’s face tightens and there’s a dark look adorned on his face when he turns.  
  
“You wouldn’t dare.”  
  
Jensen scoffs. “Try me. I wonder what they’d say if they knew the real reason behind you leaving college.”  
  
“You’re not half as smart as you think,” Jared shoots back. “You don’t have any kind of hold over me, and everything that we did today? We did it because  _I_ wanted to. Not because of whatever mind games that you’re trying to play. Compared to some of the people I’ve been around, you’re not intimidating at all. You’re still that boring corporate asshole who got fleeced by his best friend. A six month staycation in prison hasn’t changed anything. Maybe you ought to go and grab your ridiculously priced leather jacket so that you can pretend that you’re actually bringing some balls along with you.”  
  
The put down  _stings_  and Jensen’s lost for words. He can tell that Jared doesn’t mean it but that’s beside the point, he still said it and  _he’s_  the one in the wrong here, not Jensen. So he decides not to give in and just leans back in the passenger seat as the engine roars to life.  
  
Jared’s about to find out that payback really is a bitch.  
  
~  
  
If there’s one thing Jensen’s good at it’s charming parents. He’s  _boring and corporate_  enough to know all the right things to say, and he’s a decent enough actor to pretend that he doesn’t want to give Jared a matching bruise under his other eye.  
  
“He was always getting himself into fights as a kid.” Jensen smiles politely as Jared’s mom pokes at the bruise on Jared’s face.  
  
“I wonder why that was,” he says dryly. Once his mother leaves the room, Jared rolls his eyes and moves to follow her. His casual dismissal just makes Jensen angrier and he makes his mind up right there and then. It’s not fair that Jared has this loving relationship with his parents when Jensen’s father can barely look him in the eye, and the one parent that does looks like he’s ended her world. It’s time that Jared got to feel at least a second of what he’s been feeling.  
  
The perfect opening comes during dessert when Jared’s dad asks if he went to college.  
  
“Uh, yes, sir,” he says, making sure that he comes across bashful. “I actually went to Yale. It’s kind of like a family tradition.”  
  
“Oh, that’s nice,” is what Mrs. Padalecki says and Jensen’s about to bring up Jared’s short-lived college experience when she chimes in with, “Jared went to NYU but, well, it didn’t quite work out.” In that moment he’s forced to re-evaluate whether or not exposing Jared’s secret is really want he wants to do. Right now he could care less about what Jared’s feeling but his parents don’t deserve this. They don’t deserve the hurt and pain, but… they deserve the  _truth_.  
  
Jensen’s fucking sick of people lying and getting away with it. He looks up and Jared’s staring right at him, his eyes blank and face indifferent. He waits and looks for a sign of  _life_ , something, but… maybe Jared’s right. Maybe he’s just not as cold as Jared is. Prison might have fucked him a little but life has fucked with Jared even more, and that’s the real sad part.  
  
“Yeah, he told me about that,” he says when no one else speaks. “It’s a shame that college isn’t for everyone. A lot of them really need better support systems for students that are struggling. I mean, if Jared felt like he was top of things it’s not like he would have stolen those exam answers.”  
  
The silence that follows is deafening. Jared’s parents are staring at their son with confused and wide eyes. Jared’s own reticence turns that confusion into resigned expressions. Without even knowing their full family history, he knows that, somehow, they’re used to being disappointed, and for that Jensen feels guilty because no matter what’s happened between him and Jared, this wasn’t his secret to tell. The elation he thought he would feel isn’t there and he just feels hollow. Jared still hasn’t moved or said a word and, bizarrely enough, it’s his dad’s nonchalance that gets him moving.  
  
“Well, it’s been a long time now. There’s no point in dwelling over the past.” The loud clank of silver hitting china startles all of them, and Jared’s up and out of the room before anyone can get another word out. A door slams and seconds later the noise of Jared’s truck sounds and Jensen swears that he can practically hear the gravel being crushed under the tires.  
  
“So, Jensen,” Jared’s mom says. “What else has our darling son told you about life in New York? Unlike my husband, here, I think there’s every reason for us to dwell over the past.”  
  
Jensen just stares at her. In all honesty, everything Jared told him was vague enough that he couldn’t tell her much even if he wanted to. And he definitely doesn’t want to.  
  
Thankfully, Jared’s dad comes to his rescue and offers to give him a ride back to the house.  
  
~  


## 

  
  
Matt’s manning the bar when Jared gets there and he wastes no time in calling him out into the back. At this point, he’s not even angry anymore. Driving around aimlessly had helped to clear his head a little bit. All of that stuff he said to Jensen before they drove to his parents was wrong and  _stupid_  and he gets it. He gets that Jensen needed to get retribution, or whatever, and that’s okay. They’re not going to be friends again so what the fuck does it matter at this point? So he decides to clear out more of the mess that his life’s turned into.  
  
“You’re fired,” he tells Matt once they’re away from prying ears. “I’ll give you a month’s pay right now if you just get all of your shit together and leave now.”  
  
Matt doesn’t even flinch or try to pretend that he doesn’t know what this is about. “You’re making a mistake.”  
  
“Really?” Jared says. “I know who you are, and I know why you’re here. I’m sure that the Sheriff won’t like it if I tell him that we have someone in town that’s been using a fake identity.”  
  
“If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else.”  
  
“Not if I turn myself in.”  
  
“You’re just a lackey,” Matt says. “You don’t know anything.”  
  
Jared snorts. “I know a whole lot. I was the guy running the computers, I saw the accounts. You don’t think that I saved myself an insurance policy?”  
  
“You’re bluffing,” Matt says but for the first time, there’s a note of uncertainty in his eyes. Jared’s got him exactly where he wants him.  
  
“Just go, okay?” he snaps. “And tell  _Tom_  that next time, he shouldn’t make his spying so fucking obvious.”  
  
~  
  
He gets the call he’s expecting half an hour later, seconds after he throws everyone out of the bar. He takes the time to pour himself a glass of Scotch before he sits down in time for the second call.  
  
“So, you know who I am…” CK – or Tom now – sounds amused, but Jared doesn’t care anymore. The last week of his life has been so fucked up that literally nothing could break him now; nothing can crack the surface because he passed that stage a long time ago. Meeting Jensen just sped up the entire process. There’s nothing that Tom can do or say that can affect him, but there’s something he can do for Jensen.  
  
“Yeah, I do, and this is your four minute warning,” Jared says.  
  
“My  _what_?”  
  
“He was your best friend, Tom,” Jared adds. “That’s fucked up even for you.”  
  
Tom laughs coldly. “You don’t know anything about me. Or my friendship with Jensen. He’s just another fucking dumb, naïve asshole who’s too stupid to see that you don’t get to the top by playing nice. I got him that job, and while I was stuck in the open plan office earning peanuts, he was moving up, getting promotion after promotion because of his  _background_.”  
  
“Spare me the sob story,” Jared replies. “If it wasn’t Jensen, it’d be someone else, and I don’t care anymore. You have three minutes before I send your name and all the evidence I have to the NYPD.”  
  
“You’re lying.” The sad thing is that, Jared’s not lying, he’s just about to do what he should have done a long time ago. There’s a pause before Tom says, “What the hell you do want me to do in two minutes?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Jared says. “You can stay, or wait for the cops, or you can run and hide like the coward you are. I don’t really care. All I know is that today is the day that your little operation stops for good.”  
  
“This is about Jensen, isn’t it?” Tom asks, and this time Jared can hear the worry in his voice. “I tried to warn you but you were too busy getting laid.”  
  
“No, Tom, it’s about your mother,” Jared retorts sarcastically. “We messed up his life and I’m done lying and hiding out here. I’m done with being afraid of you when  _I_  have the power.”  
  
Tom growls, “You’re making a huge mistake.”  
  
“The only mistake I made was not doing this sooner,” Jared says. “I thought I was safe here but clearly I’m not, and you don’t seem like you’re the kind of guy who just lets things go, so I’m forcing your hand and clearing Jensen’s name for good in the process. You’ve got one minute.”  
  
He hangs up, downs his drink and exhales deeply, coughing slightly as the air leaves his lungs and the bravado melts away. He isn’t bluffing about the information – he kept a lot of it, just for the sake of it, and fakes just in case he was ever busted. Which is pretty messed up now that he thinks about it. He pushes the glass aside and opens the laptop that’s propped on the bar. He stares at the illuminated screen for a few seconds before glancing at the time. The second the four turns into a five, he hits send.  
  
~  
  
An hour after he sends the email someone starts hammering on the door, startling him so badly that he almost falls backward. Ignoring the way his heart is thudding in his chest, he stands and goes over to it.  
  
“Who is it?” he calls out.  
  
Surprisingly, the voice he hears is Jensen’s. “It’s me. I need to talk to you.” Jared presses his lips together tightly as he consider his options – he can open the door and they can do their best to hurt the other over things that were always beyond their control, or he can just… stay here until Jensen’s gone and then start picking up the pieces then. Given that he’s had two more glasses of Scotch, the latter option is the one he opts for.  
  
“I don’t want to talk,” he says, not caring if Jensen can hear him. What does it matter at this point?  
  
Jensen is resilient. “ _Please_. I’m not here to fight, just to talk before I leave. Jim said that he’s done with the bike. He said that he didn’—what he said isn’t important, but just… open the door.”  
  
Jared doesn’t move to open it, not now that he knows that Jensen’s really  _leaving_. It shouldn’t be a surprise but it still hit’s him hard, like a rock to the chest. It makes sense, is what he’s telling himself - Jensen can’t stay, and even if he did, what does Jared have to offer him. The nuclear bomb he just dropped on Tom could possibly affect him too, so, really, there’s nothing to offer. There’s no reason for Jensen to stay and he just has to accept that.  
  
“Look, I know that we’re not on the best of terms right now, but I just got a call from Tom and I’m guessing that it has something to do with you,” Jensen says. “He said that I should tell you to watch your back, and I quote ‘Tell Jared that he’ll pay for this’ unquote. It was very 90’s movie-villain-monologue-ish but I think he’s being serious so just… open the fucking door.” With a weary shake of his head, Jared slides the lock at the top of the door and pulls it open. Jensen gives him an unreadable look as he walks in and Jared turns his attention to locking the door back up.  
  
“It’ll take more than a locked door to stop someone who’s basically just threatened to  _kill_  you.” His expression might be unreadable, but there’s no mistaking the anger in Jensen’s eyes.  
  
“He shouldn’t’ve called you,” Jared says blankly. “Now I’m going to have to send the NYPD another email exposing Tom for all of his dirty work.” Jensen grabs his arm before he can go to the laptop and Jared stops in his tracks.  
  
“What?” Jared says. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? For your name to be cleared. For everyone to know that Tom was the one that framed you. For me to tell the truth.” He yanks his arm away and moves again, but this time Jensen darts past and stops in front of him.  
  
“I don’t want you to get yourself killed.”  
  
Jared laughs. “Tom’s either going to be in a prison cell or running for his life by the time I’m done with him. And even then, I still know too much. I know all of his friends, and their bank account numbers, and you and I both know that I can be a bastard when I want to be. It’s only a matter of time before I figure out which account matches up to who.”  
  
“What about you?” Jensen says. “Aren’t you implicated in all of this?”  
  
“I’m owning up to what I did, which, believe it or not, was just me simply plugging a flash drive into a computer and letting the magic happen,” he says. Matt is right in a sense, he was just a ‘lackey’ but one with some actual skill and Tom knows that. He knew it that day when Jared asked whose accounts he was fiddling with, and he knew it when ‘someone’ called the police anonymously two days later to report it.  
  
Tom’s mistake was that he sat on his ass and let Jared play his hand first.  
  
“So… wait, it was  _you_  who called the police all those years ago?” Jensen asks in amazement when Jared finally tells him the whole story. It’s got to be an added blow for the poor guy. Jared’s fuck up, and his attempt to repair said fuck up, confined him to life on parole and six months in a cell. Jensen must hate him. And God only knows what his parents are going to say when he eventually tells them everything.  
  
“I didn’t realise that Tom would just pin the blame on someone else, or stop to wonder how it is that he had access to that company’s data,” Jared explains. “Not until today when I was going through all the stuff that I kept.” Jensen still looks a little floored so Jared walks around him and slides his half-empty Scotch down the bar top. Jensen stops it with his hand and downs it in one go.  
  
“You didn’t have to do this because of me,” he says, voice rough from the alcohol. “I was just some nameless, faceless person that you didn’t know. I could be anybody.”  
  
Jared shakes his head. “But you’re not. We haven’t known each other that long and yet you’re always going to be that guy whose life I messed up, that guy who told my parents that I tried to cheat my way through college, and that guy that I hurt without even meaning to.”  
  
“I’m so sorry about dinner. I didn’t mean to… I mean, I did, but I… it wasn’t my place.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Jared says, attempting to pull off a nonchalant shrug. “I should have told them a long time ago.”  
  
“Yeah, but—“  
  
“But nothing, Jensen,” he interrupts. “I said all of those nasty things in the car and you retaliated. It’s done. We’re even.”  
  
“Two days ago we were fine and now we’re all fucked up,” Jensen says. “What the hell happened?” The question is deeper than Jared can handle right now and he realises that he just wants to be alone. He takes in every inch of Jensen’s face, those eyes, his hands, and everything else. He stores the memory away for a time when things become less painful.  
  
This is the end of whatever they had, and he doesn’t see the point in dragging it out.  
  
“We’re just two guys with demons that we need to get rid of,” he says. “I need to be here to do that and you need to be out there on the road, where you belong. Far, far away from me because I’m only going to keep fucking up.”  
  
Jensen looks at him sadly and says, “The night you figured out who I was, you asked me to stay.”  
  
“That was a mistake,” Jared replies. “A huge mistake. I can’t fix this and…”  
  
Jensen doesn’t wait for him to pick his sentence back up. “If I can’t stay anymore then… maybe you should come with me. We can take your truck and just leave and pretend that this never happened.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Jensen, but I’ve been doing that for the last five years and look where it’s gotten me.” Jared says. “Maybe I am stopping myself from being happy like you said to me that one time, but… I’m never going to be that for you. You’re never going to be happy with me, and I’d only hate myself more if I came with you or asked you to stay. You’re better off without me.”  
  
Jensen’s reply is soft and brief. “Yeah, maybe I am.”

 

 

 

  


  
  
Jensen leaves Hope that Monday evening, with only a parting goodbye from Jim and silence from Jared. He's just gone past the sign when it hits him that he kind of does have hope. Jared's already set the wheels in motion and maybe once the news hits his family and friends, they'll see that he really is innocent and everything will go back to normal. Back to his nine to five job, a swanky apartment with furniture that he's too afraid to eat food on. Back to his old life. Like Jared did. He dismisses the notion right there and then because, while he won't claim to be an expert, he knows that being back in his home town is not working for Jared. Going back to his old life just made him shut down until Jensen showed up and burst the dam. Jensen doesn't want that. He wants to  _live_ and he decides that he's going to, cleared name or not.  


 

  
~  
  
He drives through Missouri and Atlanta, deciding to go further east. The bike holds up, thankfully, and he powers through each state, suddenly desperate to get home. He ignores the part where he contemplates driving all the way back to Hope, just to see how Jared is doing. A couple of trips to the library to look at recent newspapers informs him that Tom Welling is wanted on charges of theft and embezzlement, and there's a tiny blurb in one of them that basically, reluctantly exonerates Jensen because trial by media isn't all that fun when the suspect is not guilty. Still, it means a lot to him that it's out there. He knows that the cops will be wanting to talk with him too, eventually, but he’s happy to put that off for as long as possible.  
  
Jensen's close to New York when he gives in and calls Jared. He's not that guy who just forgets about people even though he still cares, and there's no use in starting now. Plus, Danneel thinks that he needs closure, and if a phone call can give him that, maybe it's worth feeling nervous and nauseated over.  
  
"Hey." Jensen's in a dingy motel room that's he's convinced has mold, and he's feeling pretty shitty because of the tequila shots (and the bartender) he did last night. And while he's allowed to fuck whoever he wants, he'd be delusional to deny that he didn't pick that guy up because he reminded him of Jared. Considering that just the sound of Jared's voice is making him feel a  _lot_ better, he knows that the wound hasn't healed - not by a long shot. He's not sure that he wants it to.  
  
"Jensen?" Jared’s voice snaps him back to the present and he realises that he has nothing to say. Or, rather, that he has too much to say.  
  
"Hi," is what he starts with. In the background, there's another voice and he hears Jared say something, and even though his voice is muffled, the 'I don't know what he wants' is clear.  
  
"Hang on a second, I just need to kick someone out so we can talk." Jensen uses the pause to think about what he's going to say. Does he play it casual or go straight for the jugular?  
  
"I'm back," Jared says when he's back on the line. "How's everything going?"  
  
"Good," Jensen replies awkwardly. He grimaces to himself. "How are things with you?"  
  
"Better," Jared says. "I've got a court hearing in a month's time. They want to charge me with aiding and abetting. Yay me."  
  
"Oh. I'd give you my lawyer's number but he couldn't keep me out of jail, so…"  
  
Jared laughs at that and it sounds more carefree than usual - or at least than it did when he laughed around Jensen. The spike of jealousy that shoots up is unexpected and he wonders if this call is a mistake.  
  
He can't stop himself from saying, "You sound happy."  
  
Jared's silent for a while. "I'm more content than happy. My parents just started speaking to me again, and… they're not as angry as I'd thought they’d be. They even understand a little. And that's all I can ask for, y'know?"  
  
"I'm glad I didn't screw up your relationship with your parents," Jensen says quickly.  
  
"My parents are cool," Jared says. "I drive them crazy, and they drive me crazy, but at the end of the day they're always there. I wish that yours were the same. I take it that you've heard from them?"  
  
"I've been off the grid over the last two months. Haven't really spoken to anyone." Except for Danneel. And now Jared.  
  
"Oh." The confident edge in Jared's voice is gone and Jensen knows that Jared is just as nervous as he is.  
  
"Yeah," he says just as quietly. "I'm actually heading home now. Guess it's time to stop running and figure out what I want in life."  _Who he wants in life._  
  
"Good luck with that," Jared says. "If you decide to stay in the city, I'll send you one of those fridge cleaners from HSN." Jensen chuckles. He often thinks about that first night they spent together. Often wishes that they could go back there and just hit pause. He misses Jared and longs for the easy camaraderie that they once had. But it looks like Jared's either going to be in Hope (or, in the worst case scenario,  _prison_ ) and he's going to be in the city.  
  
"You get why I didn't come with you, right?" Jared asks abruptly. "It's not that I didn't want to, it's that I didn't want you to end up hating me. And we were pretty close to that."  
  
"I agree," Jensen says. "For what it's worth, I don't hate you, and I realized somewhere around my fiftieth dodgy burrito that you're not the person I need to forgive. It's Tom, and he doesn't even deserve it."  
  
"The cops think he's in Mexico," Jared says. Tom fled the US on the same day he was indicted according to the articles that he's read, and maybe he's getting soft, but he thinks that's punishment enough. "I'm trying to do my own tracking, but part of my bail agreement means that my online activity is monitored."  
  
"Forget about Tom."  
  
"We can't just forget what he did to you."  
  
"What he did to  _us_ ," Jensen says. "He took advantage of you, too, and he's off somewhere probably not giving a fuck. So why should we?"  
  
There's another long pause.  
  
"I suppose you're right, but... this is the only way I know how to make it up to you."  
  
"You've done enough," Jensen says. "And that's more than you needed to."  
  
Another pause. And then, "I miss you."  
  
Jensen smiles sadly. "I miss you, too."  
  


 

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/0dsui59.png)

  
~  
  
Jensen doesn’t know what he expected upon his return, but it isn’t the stony silence that follows when he asks his parents if they’d heard the news. He gets it, they want to gloss over it and pretend that it didn’t happen. The way they always do. So, he tells them to give him a call when they’re ready to talk and leaves, knowing fully well that it’s possible that the call might never come. Oddly, he’s okay with that. It’s not like they were really there during the worst time of his life. The only people that came to see him in jail were Danneel and Chris, and he hasn’t even heard from Chris for a while now. Funnily enough, he’s okay with that too.  
  
He has to be.  
  
Given that he liked to travel when it was dark, with just the streetlight to guide him, being back in the bright daylight of the city is strange. There’s still a ton of traffic, complimented so perfectly by the usual array of yellow cabs. The bright advertising screens in Times Square are still going, still selling commercialism and greed. Having sold off his apartment before he left, Jensen’s got no choice but to see if Danneel will let him stay. After months of motels, he’s not really ready to check into a hotel. He needs a place with a more personal touch.  _Like_   _Jared’s place_ , his mind supplies and he nixes the thought immediately.  
  
~  
  
Two weeks after he moves into Danneel’s apartment, Jensen opens the newspaper to the job section and snags one of her red pens. It’s a bit of a cliché but the laptop he ordered hasn’t arrived yet and, after being on the road for so long, sitting in one place isn’t something he can do anymore. Like before, stillness means that he’s left with his thoughts and usually that turns into prison memories. It’s stupid really because compared to the horror stories he heard beforehand, it wasn’t that bad. However, low security didn’t mean that he wasn’t locked up with assholes, just that they’d been convicted of a crime that didn’t constitute as being ‘high security’. And, not that he liked to toot his own horn, but his looks didn’t exactly help him. Being taunted and called obscene names wasn’t something that was going to just go away, the physical bruises were gone but phantom ones remained, and Jensen didn’t know what to do with that.  
  
For all the shit he gave Jared about being happy, he doesn’t know how to achieve that either. Does he try and fill the void or does he give it time? Does he let the wound fester until it’s ready to heal?  
  
Jensen’s got too many questions and not one single answer.  
  
“What kind of job are you looking for?” Danneel says when she sees what he’s doing. “Because I’m about to fire my assistant and you are the most organised person I know. This could be fate.”  
  
“You do realise that being organised is what got me thrown into prison in the first place?” Jensen says dryly. “I was so stuck in my ways that I made myself an easy target for Tom and…”  
  
“And Jared,” Danneel says. “Unless you’ve decided that you’re not mad at him anymore, in which case you should do something about him because moping isn’t a good look on you. At all.”  
  
“He was just a kid,” Jensen mutters. “So yeah, not mad. Whatever.”  
  
Danneel eyebrows arch upward. “Did you regress into an overgrown teenager overnight or something? Full sentences, please.”  
  
“There’s no way that I’m working for you. Ever.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” she says airily. “Seriously though, as much as I love you, you need to decide what you want. Put the past behind you and move on. Get therapy! Have another mid-life crisis and go riding in Vegas. Just… do something.” Jensen receives the message loud and clear. He’s getting under her feet and she thinks that he should move on.  
  
“I’ve only been here for two weeks,” he grumbles.  
  
“And this place is the neatest it’s ever been,” Danneel retorts. “I hate it.”  
  
Jensen laughs at that because she seriously is the messiest person he’s ever met. “Jared said the same thing when I stayed at his place.”  
  
 _Now that we know each other, can I tell you that you are seriously the neatest person I’ve ever lived with?_  
  
He remembers it as clear as day, just the way he remembers everything else.  
  
“In that case, I take it all back,” Danneel says, but it’s obvious that she’s teasing. Her smile drops and her expression turns serious. “I’ve never seen you this hung up over a guy. And one that you only knew for a week. You truly are a reformed man.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s not like the Ben’s of this world will see me as a great catch anymore.”  
  
Danneel snorts. “Well, thank fuck for that. He was a dick of epic proportions.” Jensen snorts because, he sure knows how to pick ‘em.  
  
He wonders if he really should consider therapy.  
  
 _~_  
  
"Maybe you should consider a career change?" Danneel says one night when they're out for dinner. He's just finished venting about how there doesn't seem to be anything out there, though admittedly he's not so sure that he wants to go back into finance anyway. However, it's what he knows and he's not sure what else he's supposed to do. When he thinks about how quick he shot up the company ladder, he knows that he would be an asset to any of the places he's applied to, but with the scandal…  
  
"Like, what?" he says. "It's not like I know how to do anything else."  
  
"Become an artist!" Danneel says. "The last guy I dated took me to this weird art show where the main showcase was some kind of tree log. It was very inspiring in a way. I learned that people will literally buy anything."  
  
Jensen wrinkles his nose. "I thought you said the last guy you dated only ate onion bagels and spent most of the time trash-talking some kid from Germany on Xbox. Where do you even find these people? At a strip club?"  
  
Danneel laughs. "Oh, I wish." Jensen shakes his head at her fondly but doesn't respond. He looks up to signal the waiter over and he catches sight of a familiar face. It takes a while for the name to come to him, but when it does he looks away quickly, not wanting to draw attention to himself. It doesn't work though because the man spots him and starts to head over. Jensen's contemplating hiding under the table before he gets there but he decides to stick it out. After all, the man - Jeff - ended up being one of the few inmates who had his back in prison. Jensen hopes that this doesn't mean that he owes him anything.  
  
"I didn't think I'd be seeing you again, Pretty boy," Jeff says with a smile.  
  
The name makes Jensen flinch, and he scowls. He glances across the restaurant but no one is paying them any attention. He feels some of the tension in his shoulder seep out, even though he’s still on edge. He sets his fork down gently and looks back up at Jeff and correct him, "It's  _Jensen_."  
  
Danneel remains silent even though her eyes are screaming 'what's going on?'  
  
Jeff grins sheepishly. "My bad. I've always been bad with names. Anyway, how's life on the outside?" The nonchalant way he asks the question doesn’t do much to help Jensen feel less like someone’s just shoved a huge microscope above his head. He glances around once more, still ignoring Danneel’s curious look.  
  
"Peachy," Jensen replies eventually. "Is there something I can help you with?" Jeff wasn't all that bad in jail, but Jensen heard enough to know that he's not exactly one of the good guys either. That he stopped Jensen from getting his face bashed in for the fifth time is nice and all, but he's not about to exchange friendship bracelets with the guy.  
  
"Nope, things are good on my end," Jeff says with another wide smile. "I've got my freedom back, what more could a guy want?"  _To be left alone_ , Jensen thinks, but he doesn’t voice it.  
  
"I'm sure all of the terrified 'customers' that owe you money will be happy to know you're back on the streets," he shoots back. "Or are you going to keep things clean this time?"  
  
Jeff shrugs. His smile's not as bright and there's a hard edge to his eyes. It doesn't faze Jensen because it's nothing he's not seen before. He might not have been able to fight back when it was six against one but he's not going to back down if Jeff tries anything.  
  
"I'm not half of what I claimed to be in there," he replies quietly. "I was just wise enough to come up with something that made me seem intimidating."  
  
Jensen doesn't buy it for a second. It all seemed pretty damn real to him. "How noble of you."  
  
"You're more than welcome to look me up," Jeff says, his smile still present, and damn if he doesn't look so amused. "And give me a call when you do. I've got a business proposal for you." Jensen takes the offered business card and watches as Jeff winks in Danneel's direction and then slinks away, leaving Jensen jittery.  
  
"What the hell was that about?" Danneel asks as Jensen shreds the card into pieces.  
  
"I don't know," he says. "But I intend to find out."  
  
~  
  
Clichéd as it sounds, life goes on. He tries to look into Jeff but a web search of his full name doesn't bring up much. There's a mostly empty LinkedIn profile and little else and he decides to leave it for now. He calls Jared once, and waits a week for Jared to get back to him, but there's nothing. He decides not to dwell on it. He can't keep going around in circles over what was essentially a fling. Just a flash in the pan that shouldn't have him twisted up this way. So he shoves it aside and goes back to his mundane routine. He drives up to the Hamptons to see his grandparents (who thankfully don't mention his parents), goes to lunch with his sister and sorts out all of the stuff he’s got in storage. He finds a whole bunch of work files but he doesn’t give them a second glance - that's a whole can of worms that he's not ready to deal with yet.  


## 

  
  
After turning himself in, one of the bail conditions is that he has to remain in New York State – meaning the city. It’s strange being back, even more bizarre that they’ve given him a tracking anklet. But anyway, he’s forced to shack up with an old friend of his called Mike, in a poky one bedroom apartment and watch endless Seinfeld re-runs in between long, tedious meetings with his lawyers. He doesn’t go out, barely even looks outside of a window because he’s not entirely convinced that the allure of living dangerously ever really goes away. He and Mike spend enough time reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ for him to miss the nights when he was so wasted that he couldn’t remember his name, the way nothing in the world seemed to matter besides making enough to survive and party just as hard the next day. The inebriation and illegal dealings aren’t really what he misses about those days, but rather the carefreeness of it all. He wasn’t ‘that kid whose parents own the diner’ here, he was just Jared Padalecki, one unknown in a large city full of other unknowns. While memory lane isn’t exactly dangerous, he nips it in the bud quite early on into his stay and buries himself in his case.  
  
(He tries not to think about Jensen either, but that’s another story.)  
  
The State's Attorney’s Office try to play hardball in regards to his charges, but Jared’s got them where he wants them. He has information on a relatively large criminal group and they’re probably looking for some catchy, resounding victory they can parade to the public, so he’s feeling confident that they’ll offer him a better plea bargain before it goes to trial. Or, rather, his lawyer is confident and Jared’s just putting his blind faith in the guy. Part of him just wants to take the five years and be done with it, but when he thinks about how much he’s disappointed his parents, he knows that he’s got to fight. He isn’t the one they really want, but the chances of them ever finding Tom get slimmer every day.  
  
Jared hopes that doesn’t end up being the factor that seals his fate.  
  
~  
  
Jared’s been in town for a couple of weeks when Mike mentions that Chad’s back in the city to mend fences with Sophia and hopefully bond with his kid. By the time Jared catches up with Chad, his former best friend is working at some restaurant and he looks more put together than Jared’s seen him in a while. There’s still some lingering resentment between them but it’s obvious that Chad’s trying, and Jared’s all for mending their friendship. Yet, it’s hard to focus when there’s a chance that he might end up in jail because of dumb shit he did as a kid. Being cooped up inside all day long probably doesn’t help and, one particular evening, Chad seems to decide that enough is enough. He’s been coming around a couple of times a week, all cheery eyes and bright smiles and Jared’s slowly getting sick of it.  
  
“Jared, I love you like a brother but… you’ve got to start getting out more,” Chad says after he’s finished watching one of those modern sitcoms that Jared doesn’t know the name of. “You look like a fucking vampire.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes and points at the tag. “I have a curfew, remember?”  
  
“There are plenty of things for you to do before 8pm, so that’s not a good excuse,” Chad fires back.  
  
“Right, maybe I should become a raging drunk like you did,” Jared snaps. He regrets it instantly but Chad doesn’t even flinch or even react.  
  
“I probably deserved that,” he admits, and Jared shrugs because he kind of does. “But now I’m not going to tell you where I saw your… whatever that guy back in Hope was called.” It’s weird not hearing Chad call Hope home considering that they both grew up and spent their formative years there; Chad moved to New York with his parents the summer he turned fifteen so maybe  _this_  is home for him. Just like it’s kind of home for Jensen.  
  
It’s just never going to be home for Jared.  
  
“I’m not interested.” He’s lying of course, but the less he knows about Jensen’s life in the city the better. They’re done and he’s accepted it. There’s no room for any back and forth, not when he has a possible sentence looming over his head.  
  
“Can I ask you a question?” Chad asks. “Why did you turn yourself in? Did he make you?”  
  
“What?” Jared snaps. “No! Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I’m just trying to do the right thing for once? I’ve been fucking up since college and now I’m just trying to right all of the wrongs that I’ve done.”  
  
Chad frowns. “But you didn’t do anything  _that_  bad! I don’t understand why you’re beating yourself over this. None of it was your fault.”  
  
“So whose fault is it then?”  
  
“Mine,” Chad says quietly. “For suggesting that you try and steal those answers and for getting you mixed up in CK’s mess when you needed cash. Once I knew the truth about Sophia and you, I should have stopped being so stupid, but I was scared, you know? Suddenly I had a kid, and an ex-girlfriend that loathed me, and you were in the middle of it all.”  
  
“Can we not do this?” Jared says tiredly. “I get it. You’re sorry for blackmailing me. Sorry for getting me into this mess. You’re sorry and I  _wish_  that it meant something but it doesn’t.”  
  
“Jared—“  
  
He cuts Chad off with a raised but still hand. “Let me finish. I’m grateful to you for trying to be there but it’s too little, too late. You assumed things about me that you know I’d never do, believed her over me even though you knew how she felt about you, and you’ve made the last two years of my life a living hell.”  
  
Jared wouldn’t call himself an idiot, but where Chad is concerned there’s no doubt that his judgement has been blinkered. Working with Aldis, his lawyer, to construct a timeline of everything that’s happened makes him see things a lot clearer, and he realised that Chad reappeared back in Hope a month after Matt started working at the bar.  
  
“He made me tell him,” Chad blurts out quickly. “With the DA’s office looking to prosecute, he was trying to tie up loose ends and keep everything locked down, and then he realised that the flash drive was missing. So I told him where you were.”  
  
Even though he’s already aware of Chad’s betrayal, it stings nonetheless. He’s not angry, just blank. All of this could have been avoided if he’d just told the truth. But he didn’t, and now he has to deal with Jensen and all of the other potential victims out there, potentially caught in the crossfire. That’s on his conscience.  
  
“Did he make you blackmail me?”  
  
“No,” Chad shakes his head frantically. “That was fucked up, but I just wanted to shake you up a little bit, but then you kept paying me and… I was so angry at you that I started to enjoy it, and— Wait, where are you going?” Jared’s shoving things into his small duffel bag, suddenly desperate to get the hell out of here. Mike’s a godsend for letting him stay but right now he just needs his own space. He needs to be somewhere that Chad can’t walk into. He needs room to breathe.  
  
“I can’t do this with you anymore,” Jared says. “I can’t be your friend right now. I understand why you did what you did, and I’m not angry but… you’re bad news, Chad, and… I can’t handle any more bad news. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering when you’re next going to stab me in the back.”  
  
Chad looks like he wants to argue. There’s panic in his eyes and what seems to be genuine remorse, and if Jared wasn’t in a complete state of apathy, he’d give in. Agree to move on. He sees the moment that the fight leaves Chad and he stops packing and waits.  
  
After a long silence, Chad nods, “I understand. But one day I’m going to show you that I can be a good friend, Jared, and we’re going to forget that all of this ever happened. Maybe I can start by giving you this?” He takes a scrap of paper from his pocket and hands it over. Jared takes it reluctantly, frowning when he sees an address.  
  
“It’s Jensen’s address” Chad says, even though he’s been acting like he knows nothing about the guy since Jared got here. “I might not be the best friend, but… I saw the two of you together a little bit when I was walking around town, and… I think there’s something there. Don’t do what I did and spend years pushing him away because you can’t get over your own bullshit melodrama.”  
  
“You’re just trying to win me over, aren’t you?” Jared says, because cynicism doesn’t just evaporate within seconds, and as much as he wants to believe Chad’s sincerity, he doesn’t. Not yet at least.  
  
Chad smiles sadly. “No. I’m just trying to help you do the right thing. And if you can forgive me one day, then fine. If not, you’ll always be my best friend, no matter what happens.” Even though Jared’s got every right to walk away from Chad, a lump forms in his throat. He’s known Chad his entire life, and while Chad certainly shoved him strongly, no one forced Jared to do all of the things he did. Somewhere in the midst of it all, Chad’s heart was initially in the right place, and maybe that ought to count for something.  
  
Just not right now.  
  
“I need time, okay?” Jared says, because he’s always forgiven Chad easily and was always the first to come crawling back. “Then we’ll…. We’ll see. In the meantime, thank you for the address.”  
  
“Are you gonna go and see him?” Chad asks, his voice thick and eyes suspiciously watery. Jared returns to packing his bag.  
  
He doesn’t answer.  
  
~  
  
Aldis is confident that the charges will be dropped, given Jared’s initial lack of knowledge regarding the flash drive, but they still have to go through the depositions and play a waiting game. This leaves Jared feeling stressed and down, his overly white hotel room provides little solace, so he finds himself stepping outside more often. At first it’s a little scary and intimidating, in a way that Hope could never be, but as the days pass by, he starts to get used to it. That crushing, encompassing feeling in his chest dissipates and he starts to realise that it’s not the city he’s afraid off, it’s  _himself._ However, he’s more in control than he ever was back then and he starts to realise how ridiculous he’s been over the years. Sure, his fear was mixed in with a lot of guilt, but he was naïve in thinking that there were too many variables that he couldn’t control when in reality there’s one variable that he can control – himself. Life is full of choices, and while he might not always make the right one, he’s the only one that can make them for himself. Not the city, or Chad, or anyone else. Just him.  
  
And right now, in the middle of a busy street, with the smell of hot dog stands and stale garbage in the air, he realises that he’s got one more important choice to make.  
  
~  
  
Jared’s attempts to visit Jensen’s apartment are thwarted by countless meetings and strategy planning. And then Sandy calls from Hope in a panic about the lack of beer at the bar and he realises that he still hasn’t gotten a replacement for Matt (who for some inexplicable reason is still in town). Sandy pleads with him to let Matt help and he agrees reluctantly, just because of how stressed she sounds. Even though Matt makes an effort to call him and say some bullshit about not working for Tom anymore, Jared’s antsy and worried. He doesn’t want to potentially come out of jail and find that Matt’s taken everything away from him, even if he maybe didn’t deserve it in the first place. He wouldn’t be able to handle that.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Aldis reassures him. “Within a few months you’ll be back home and this’ll be a distant memory.”  
  
“How’d you figure that one out?” Jared asks.  
  
Aldis eyes him shrewdly. “Despite your misdemeanours, I can tell that you’re a good guy. You’ve given them almost seventy percent of their case and, like it or not, if they ever find Tom, they’ll need you as a witness. And you’d be a lot less persuasive if you were locked up somewhere. S’all about tit for tat in law. You’ve just gotta know how to play the game.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes but he dares to breathe a sigh of hope, and he’s still trying to calm himself down when he leaves Aldis’ office building and steps into the street, not checking to see if the road is clear or not. He hears the squeal of tires before he feels anything but something hard collides into him and he finds himself sprawled on the ground, gravel digging into his palms from where he tries to break his fall. The pain hits him a second later but it’s not so bad. Just a dull throb in his leg. He looks up in time to see the driver of the motorbike that hit him remove their helmet and he freezes when he sees who it is.  
  
Jensen.  
  
The jacket looks more worn in, his jeans are ripped at the knees and frayed, but he still looks amazing and, as ridiculous as it sounds, just seeing him in the flesh takes Jared’s breath away. They stare at each other wordlessly for what seems like an age until the silence is broken by a kind woman asking if he needs an ambulance. Jared’s hate for hospitals has him scrambling to stand up which seems to snap Jensen into action because he drops his helmet and rushes over to help. Jensen’s hands are warm on the skin of Jared’s arms and his familiar scent is like… like, home and-  
  
Jared pulls away. He almost wants to roll his eyes at the entire situation. It’s like something out of a rom-com, a conveniently improbable way for the couple to reunite after their ‘major conflict’.  
  
Yet here they are - convenient and improbable.  
  
“I’m fine,” he says, more to Jensen than the woman, but she smiles sympathetically and walks away. Jensen’s still looking right at him, his green eyes more intense than Jared’s ever seen.  
  
“You’re bleeding,” Jensen gasps, horrified. Jared spots the gash on his arm and sways slightly because the sight of blood has never been on a top ten list of things that he wants to see.  _Ever_.  
  
“Whoa, whoa, easy,” Jensen says as he reaches out to steady him. This time Jared lets himself enjoy the touch because, dammit, he misses Jensen. Misses him so much that he wants to just stop time and cling onto him for so long that things will just magically be okay. “I live just around the corner… If you want I can help clean that up for you? I don’t think its deep enough for stitches.”  
  
Jared nods, not trusting himself to speak.  
  
~  
  
The apartment is nice. It’s almost depressingly neat, though with Jensen living here, that’s not a surprise. Jensen doesn’t speak on the walk there, probably because he’s focused on pushing his bike, though he doesn’t say much when they get inside. Jared sits in the kitchen wincing as Jensen applies something to the gash. The silence grows thicker and Jared secretly wishes that Jensen would break the ice because he’s so out of his element here. He’s never had a proper relationship like Jensen has, never really had anything more than a fling, but they’ve done that and it wasn’t enough. Even with the drama, he can still feel the chemistry between them, crackling in the air like a livewire waiting to be sparked.  
  
“I called you a couple of weeks ago,” is not what Jared’s expecting Jensen to say. He’s also not anticipating the bitterness in Jensen’s tone and he flinches unconsciously. Jensen stops what he’s doing and looks at him for a long time but says nothing. He’s waiting for an explanation, Jared realises.  
  
“I had to change my number about a month ago,” he says slowly. “So the cops could have my phone in the event that Tom tries to call.”  
  
“Oh…” Jensen looks surprised and Jared knows what he’s thinking. “I thought you…”  
  
“No, I just didn’t get the calls,” Jared says. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“For what?” Jensen looks confused, and Jared almost wants to shake him and ask why he’d think that Jared would intentionally ignore him but this – them – it’s not easy.  
  
“For making you think that I didn’t want to speak you,” Jared replies. “I would never… I wouldn’t do that to you.”  
  
“I know,” Jensen says simply. “I mean, I guess I just… Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry, too.”  
  
“What for?”  
  
Jensen smiles cheerlessly. “For running you over?” His hands still on Jared’s arm, warmth seeping through the skin. Jared resists the urge to shiver. He’s missed Jensen’s touch…a lot.  
  
“I was the one not looking where I was going,” Jared says. “So…” Perhaps coming here was a mistake. This is just awkward and… _hard,_  and maybe they aren’t ready for this. Not ready to be friends - or more. He watches silently as Jensen moves to sit next to him at the kitchen table, with his legs stretched out underneath.  
  
“This is stupid,” Jensen says suddenly and Jared looks up to see fierce determination in those green eyes. “We’re being stupid. I… I haven’t stopped thinking about you since Hope, Jared, and I’ll admit that I was so fucking hurt at first. I thought that you’d betrayed me in the worst possible way but you didn’t. You put your neck on the line for me, and I… I’m not sure how to take that.”  
  
Jared doesn’t trust himself to speak so he remains wordless.  _I’m so fucked up_ , he thinks, because what he wants is right here in front of him and he’s too afraid to fight for it.  
  
“I’ve spent a long time wondering why we ever met at all,” Jensen continues. “I was never supposed to stop in Hope and you were never supposed to come face to face with me, but we did. And you helped me clear my name. You…  _listened_  to me and you understood me. I told you so many things that I’ve never told anyone and I think that counts for something. I think we were meant to find each other.”  
  
Jared can’t say that he hasn’t thought along similar lines, but his version tends to deviate around the finding each other point, into him deserving to fall in love with Jensen just so he can lose him the way Jensen lost everything. Bizarrely enough, Chad’s words sound in his head.  
  
 _Don’t do what I did and spend years pushing him away because you can’t get over your own bullshit melodrama._  
  
Chad’s right. And if Jensen can get over what happened then Jared certainly can. He’s not the one that suffered the most, Jensen is and he’s here, trying to make amends, and… it’s time for Jared to meet him halfway.  
  
~

 

  
Jared looks terrified, and that’s the last thing he wants, but he can’t help it. He does feel like this is fate. And fuck it, he  _loves_  Jared and he’s not going to pussyfoot around it anymore. He’s here.  _Jared_ ’s here and, at this point, Jensen’s so fucking ecstatic to see him that he’ll follow Jared anywhere. That thought alone frightens the hell out of him, but the idea of rejection is even more soul-crushing.  
  
“I’m a mess,” Jared confesses suddenly. “All the things you said about me? All true. And I screw things up and let people down. I don’t mean to, but I do and… I don’t want to let you down. I don’t want you to see how truly fucked up I am because I’m scared that you’re going to run away. Or that you’ll let me  _push_  you away.”  
  
There’s a sadness in his voice that Jensen’s never heard before and he wonders what’s been going on since they last spoke. Why  _is_  Jared in New York when he claimed that this place was no good for him?  
  
“I’m done with running away,” he says instead of asking. “I can jump on the bike and go wherever I want but I know where my heart will be. I know where my soul will be. So, what’s the point?”  
  
“I agree,” Jared says slowly. “And… even if you did run, I… I don’t plan on letting you go.” It’s an affirmation if ever he heard one but with Jared, Jensen sometimes can’t tell. He says one thing but his eyes say another and right now they’re full of fear.  
  
“I’m screwing this up, aren’t I?” Jared adds abruptly. His tone is louder and some of the fear fades away. “I’ve thought about what I’d say a million times, but I’ll be honest with you - relationships have never been my forte. I’m shit at ‘connecting’ with people and I never know the right thing to do so I just stick to what I’m good at. Sex. And I was okay with that, okay with being alone. Until I met you and… I’m in love with you, Jensen.”  
  
“I’m right there with you,” Jensen says because suddenly the elusive L-word isn’t coming out of his mouth, even though he knows how he feels. Somehow saying it would strip that last layer away and he’s not sure if he’s going to get his happy ending after all. “But you make it sound like some sort of death sentence.”  
  
Jared snorts humourlessly. “It might be. I still have this court case hanging over my head. I could end up in prison, Jensen, and where would that leave you.”  
  
The answer to that is easy. “It would leave me here, waiting for you.”  
  
“I could never ask you to do that,” Jared says and he actually looks appalled. Jensen laughs despite himself.  
  
“That’s the whole point of being in love, Jared. I’d care enough to wait, even if you didn’t want me to because no one else could ever come close to being what you are to me. And if you’re messed up, so I am, so that’s not an excuse either.”  
  
“Okay,” Jared says softly. And then with more determination. “Let’s do this. Just… forget about all of the other bullshit and focus on  _us_.” He still sounds unsure but there’s finally conviction in his eyes and Jensen isn’t about to give him a reason to back out. He stands up and puts away the first aid kit, finishes wrapping up Jared’s arm, and then sits back down, across from him this time instead of next to him. They should probably set some ground rules and boundaries, given the topsy turvy way they’ve begun.  
  
“You look like you’re about to say something really serious,” Jared says before Jensen can start. There’s a strange twinkle in his eye and Jensen finds that he likes it. He grins, laughing almost when twin dimples appear on Jared’s cheeks.  
  
“I was,” he admits. “But I guess it can wait.” Jared seems to agree with that and they just sit there quietly, grinning at each other like fools in love.  
  
Danneel manages to fuck everything up a few hours later when she comes back and walks in on them, takes one look at the unknown, big, tall guy in bed with him, and goes into a long blown tirade about how fucking random guys isn’t going to help him get over Jared. He finds it amusing at first until he realises that maybe he shouldn’t have slept with those other guys. Jared’s facial expression is hard to read from where he’s preserving his modesty with Jensen’s comforter. Danneel takes the hint after a few minutes and leaves his room, no doubt rolling her eyes at what she perceives to be his stupidity. Hell, she probably has a point.  
  
“Well, she seems fun,” Jared says. He flops back down onto the bed and looks up at the ceiling.  
  
“Are you upset about me… hooking up with other people?” Jensen’s not ashamed of having sex with those guys, but it’d be a downer if it upset Jared in any way. He probably would have told him eventually, but not three hours into their newly cemented relationship. There’s too soon and there’s  _too fucking soon_.  
  
“I’m…” Jared pauses, and scrunches his face adorably as he contemplates a better word. “I’m okay with it. I mean, obviously, I wish that we could have gotten our act together sooner…. but that’s the past and this is now. Let’s focus on today onwards.”  
  
“No looking back?” Jensen replies  
  
“No looking back.”  
  
~  
  
Three weeks into the relationship, Jared doesn’t speak to him for an entire day. Every call and text go unanswered and Jensen panics, thinking that maybe Jared’s gone. Maybe they’ve sent him to prison and Jared’s been keeping the trial information from him. So he goes down to Jared’s hotel and charms his way into Jared’s room, making up some story about how he wants to surprise his boyfriend (not that the concierge is paying attention).  
  
When he makes it up to the room, it reeks of alcohol and vomit and Jensen suddenly remembers just how good Jared is at pretending. He also remembers what he was like in the run up to his trial and he berates himself for not watching Jared more closely. For not trying to prevent any self-destructive behaviour even though he know that Jared’s still wary about becoming that guy that he was five years ago.  
  
Jared doesn’t notice him until he walks about of the bathroom with his hair damp and a towel slung over his neck. There are bags under his eyes and, despite the pink flush on his cheeks, there's almost no life in him, no colour and Jensen's hit by what he can only assume is a wave of temporary insanity.  
  
"Have you thought about running?" he asks, "If things don't work out." The look Jared gives him is unreadable and it hits Jensen then that this doesn't make sense. They don't make sense, and maybe they're stupid for starting something right before Jared possibly goes to jail, because the guy he's in love with won't be the guy that comes back out, and Jensen's not sure that either of them could handle that. On the other hand, maybe things will be different for Jared. Maybe they'll be okay regardless, but after everything, he's not sure if he's willing to take the risk.  
  
"Did  _you_ think about running?" Jared asks in a terse tone.  
  
"No," Jensen admits. "But I wasn't..." He trails off at the sharp look that Jared cuts his way. Words stuck on his tongue as he formulates a better way to get his point across.  
  
"You weren't guilty," Jared says. "That's great for you, Jensen. It's freakin’ peachy. Spare me the speech, though."  
  
Jensen snorts. "Listen, I could co-sign your self-pitying crap and pretend that I agree with what you're doing. I could fuck you and pretend that our relationship isn't already on shaky ground. We could run away and act like we're frickin' Bonnie and Clyde and none of that would change the fact that you did this to yourself. You turned yourself in, Jared, and I mighta been pissed at you but I probably wouldn't have asked you to. So the way I see it, you've got two choices." He pauses to regard Jared briefly and isn't surprised to see the bemusement on his face. Jensen's been singing a different hymn sheet since their reunion, but having a break from Jared yesterday has helped him put things in perspective.  
  
"What are those?" Jared asks.  
  
"You either suck it up, accept defeat, and take whatever deal they're throwing at you, or you get smart," Jensen says. "Cause and effect, man. By your own admission you were at the very bottom of Tom's operation.”  
  
“Look, you know what? Maybe I don’t want to think about any of this for a while,” Jared says bluntly. “I…think you should go. I’m in a shitty mood and I _know_  that you’re only trying to help. But not now. I’ll call you, okay?”  
  
The dismissal stings but Jensen takes it on the chin. Jared’s entitled to his space and he isn’t going to deny him of that. That he’s worried is secondary to how Jared must be feeling and he of all people understands just what it’s like. So he bites back the sharp comment dancing on his tongue and nods, more to himself than Jared.  
  
“Fine,” he mutters as he heads toward the door. “Fine.”  
  
~  
  
When Jared doesn’t call for another day, Jensen gives in and finds himself going back to the hotel once again. He wonders if this is how it’s always going to be. If he’s always going to be chasing Jared, always making the first move. Jared still looks like he’s winding down from a bender when he lets Jensen in. He asks if Jared’s alright and gets a shrug in response. Jared gestures for him to sit on the bed but either won’t or can’t meet his eyes. Questions are answered with offhand comments, and Jensen starts to fear the worst. He starts to think that he’s screwed this all up. Jared looks worried and that in turn concerns Jensen, because after everything they’ve been through they can’t fall at the first hurdle. They just can’t.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says, hoping that the apology will revive Jared slightly. “I didn’t mean to make you talk about everything yesterday. I was just worried about you.” Jared looks at him searchingly, his eyes dark and conflicted and Jensen’s stomach lurches. He takes a deep breath and looks right back, silently pleading for Jared to say something.  
  
“Well, it doesn’t matter now anyway,” Jared finally says casually. Too casually. Jensen’s confusion bleeds into guilt, and Jensen watches him curiously. “They dropped all the charges against me yesterday afternoon.”  
  
The sharp, bright, spike of fierce joy that he feels at Jared’s words swiftly abrades to something else, and it’s the pleased lilt to Jared’s voice which sets Jensen off. He’s not angry that Jared’s free, or that he’s apparently the only person who’s going to see the inside of a jail cell over what Tom did. He’s upset that Jared’s waited an entire day to break the news to him, like he means nothing – like  _they_  mean nothing. It might be a bit of an overreaction but right here and now it’s taking every single fibre of his being to not smash something, and he doesn’t even know where  _that’s_  coming from.  
  
Except for the part where he does. And he should be happy that Jared won’t go through the same thing, but he’s not. There’s a bitter taste on his tongue and he’s not sure what it is. Anger, pride, jealously… all of the above?  
  
“I’m sorry that I didn’t call…” Jared trails off sheepishly. “I might have overdone it last night when I went down to the bar to toast my new found freedom.” His words strike a nerve and Jensen decides that it’s anger that he’s feeling.  
  
“I’m very happy for you,” is what he manages to force out. “And I’m glad that you could celebrate with all of your buddies while I sat at home worrying about you.”  
  
Jared looks slightly abashed as he responds. “I was going to tell you today, when it’d all sunk in.” He’s lying and Jensen hates that he can tell because when he walks away he won’t be able to pretend it’s because they don’t know each other well. No, it’ll be for one reason and one reason alone.  
  
“You wanted one day to enjoy the fact that you’re not going to jail,” Jensen replies easily, because that’s the truth. He can stand here and blame Jared but there’s no point. “Without having to look me in the eye and know that I’m the one who’s paid for what Tom did and what Tom made you do, and that’s fine, Jared. You can pretend all you want, far, far away from me.”  
  
“—Jensen—“  
  
Jared takes a step towards him and there’s a clinking sound as his bare foot collides with an empty bottle. Jensen can almost picture the event in his mind - Jared celebrating, knocking drinks back as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and why should he?  
  
Jensen takes a step back. “Don’t come near me.” Jared flinches visibly but he backs off. Jensen can almost see the wheels turning in his brain and he’s suddenly exhausted. He came into this room thinking that Jared was freaking out and worrying himself sick but now he’s the one who feels sick. He’s the one who’s scared that this thing with Jared won’t work after all because he should be  _happy_. He should be overjoyed that his – that the guy that he’s in _love_  with isn’t going to be locked up, but he’s not and… there’s no running away from that.  
  
"What happened to not looking back?" Jared asks, his voice barely a whisper but still ringing loud and clear in Jensen’s ears.  
  
“Today happened,” Jensen says wearily. “It’s not the past when we’re still dealing with the present. The here and now and… I don’t… Why did you turn yourself in?”  
  
“You know why,” Jared says. “I… I did it for you. I won’t lie and say that I did it because of all the people I potentially screwed over. They’re only a part of it. I just… Going to prison, I don’t feel like I really deserve that. I wish that I did but heck, maybe I’m just a selfish asshole.”  
  
Jensen swears under his breath when he feels tears prickling at his eyes. “Then what was the point? I’m still that guy who did time for something he didn’t do, so what exactly did you do for me? You got yourself arrested and then paid someone to get you out of it. What was the fucking point?”  
  
“Maybe I did it for myself,” Jared snaps. “Is that what you want to hear? That you gave me the push I needed to sort myself out. To stop hiding.”  
  
“Oh, you’re definitely not hiding anymore,” Jensen mutters. “And I wish you all the best, Jared, I really do, but when this conversation is over, I suggest that you pack your shit and go back to Hope because there’s nothing for you here but a whole bunch of variables that you can’t control.”  
  
“Jensen, come on,” Jared says pleadingly. “You knew what the deal was. You wanted me to get out of this just as much as I did.”  
  
“Yeah, because I love you,” Jensen bites back. “And I thought that you were genuinely doing something for  _me_. I didn’t realise that this was your road to salvation and I was just a convenient bus stop along the way. But I do now, and I’m done putting up with other people’s shit. I’m done with my parents acting like I’m some huge disgrace. Done with my old friends pretending that I don’t exist, and I’m done with getting in the middle of your existential crisis.”  
  
Jared runs a hand through his hair and exhales deeply. “All of this because I didn’t call you?”  
  
Jensen opens his mouth to respond but he stops. It’s simple really. Jared claims that he turned himself in because of him and then proceeded to shell out the cash for some high-flying lawyer the second that they  _charged_ him. Jensen can understand that – he can. What he doesn’t get is why Jared doesn’t get that by claiming he did that for Jensen, he’s put the burden on him as well. Nothing made him feel more nauseated than picturing Jared in that grey, dreary cell, crying and lonely because he’d turned himself in. And he wasn’t even worthy of a phone call.  
  
Fuck that.  
  
~  
  
It takes Jensen six hours and a very long conversation with Danneel to calm down. He’s ashamed because, if anything, his outburst has proven why Jared didn’t call him in the first place. And he, more than anyone, hadn’t wanted Jared to end up locked up so… it’s stupid. Feeling upset and hard done by is stupid when he knows that  _Tom_  is the only person that he should be mad at. However, it’s difficult not to feel aggrieved when he’s been pretending that he’s over all of this and that there’s isn’t some dark part of him desperate to seek revenge. He might even be combing through some of his old work files to see if there’s any dirt on Tom because it’s crazy that someone can be so openly guilty without facing the consequences - even if money has exchanged hands.  
  
“You’re obsessed with this stuff,” Danneel remarks when she catches him peering at yet another spreadsheet on his laptop. “Shouldn’t you be off somewhere smoothing things over with Jared?” She thinks that he should go back and apologise but he’d much rather let the dust settle. He doesn’t want to snap or lose control the way he did when he found out who Jared was. That’s not… it’s not him. And he’s done with using his time in jail as an excuse.  
  
“I’m waiting for things to calm down,” he mumbles as his eyes catch on a familiar name, Martha Kent. He whistles quietly, ignoring Danneel when she walks over and stands right next to him as if the numbers in front of him will suddenly make sense to her. She remains like that for a minute before she picks up the laptop and shuts it with a loud click.  
  
“This’ll be here when you come back,” she says sternly. “Go and talk to Jared.”  
  
Jensen frowns at her. “You don’t even like him!” She has never actually said that to him, but he knows her and she’s definitely been subdued whenever he mentions Jared.  
  
“I don’t know him,” she replies. “But you do and… you love him. Don’t let him go over something stupid.”  
  
~  
  
Jared looks a lot better when Jensen steps into his hotel room for the second time that day. He beckons Jensen in with an eager wave of his hand, and is acting stranger than usual as he gestures for him to take a seat. It’s obvious that he has a lot on his mind, but Jensen has something he wants to say too.  
  
“I have something to ask you,” he says before Jared can break out into whatever speech he’s planned. “Are you familiar with the name Martha Kent or the initials MK?” Jared’s eyes dim as he considers the question.  
  
“No,” he says after a few seconds. “Why?”  
  
“I’ve been tracing Tom’s money trail,” Jensen admits. “In-between all of the job rejection emails and being idle at home - I got it into my head that the best revenge would be stealing the money back. And that meant finding it. So I’ve been going through all of the company files I had stashed in storage and I found an interesting document in Tom’s personal log. It was a client list of some sorts, but none of the names matched the ones affiliated with the company.”  
  
“Can you just get to the point?” Jared asks impatiently. Jensen resists the urge to roll his eyes.  
  
“There was a name on there that stuck out,” he says hastily. “Martha Kent. Mother of Clark Kent and also Martha was the name of Tom’s sister. She died when he was young, which would explain why no one’s been able to trace any of the stolen money and link it to Tom. He’s using his dead sister’s name on all of his accounts.”  
  
“But you said that the name was on a client list?”  
  
“No, it was just a list of names,” Jensen clarifies. “I have no idea who any of these people are. Targets maybe? I have no idea how many people who he stole from.”  
  
“I have some idea,” Jared admits with a shrug. “I didn’t—you know what, never mind.” Jensen frowns. It’s unlike Jared not to say something when he wants to so…he must be concerned about upsetting  _him_. Jensen knows that he can be dramatic at the best of times but if they’re ever going to work, they need to be able to communicate with each other. Even if it’s over something that strikes a nerve, they need to be able to deal with it.  
  
He moves off the well-worn armchair placed by the window and goes to join Jared on the double bed that’s probably still too small for him. He places his hand on Jared’s knee and says, “Say what you want to say.”  
  
Jared looks uncomfortable but he shrugs awkwardly and continues, “Back when I sent the information to the police, I didn’t send all of it. I sent what I thought was the more incriminating stuff but there was a lot of stuff on the flash drive. Names, lists – seems like you had one of those too - and I didn’t think they were important. At least not until jail time started looking like a serious prospect and… I wasn’t going to tell you this, but… I offered them more information if they agreed that they would drop the charges, and they went for it.”  
  
“I probably would have done the same thing,” Jensen admits. “I don’t think any less of you because you’re not holed up in a cell somewhere. You know that, right?”  
  
It takes Jared a while to answer and, while Jensen understands, he hates that he couldn’t just let bygones be bygones and not freak out over Jared when he found out that he wasn’t going to prison. He hates that any of it still bothers him at all. That it’s casting a cloud of doubt over Jared, one of the only bright spots in his life at the moment.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared replies eventually. “I do know that, Jensen. None of this is… it’s a complicated situation that’s all, and one day we’ll look back on it and all it will be is part of our story.”  
  
“And you’re not at all worried about Tom finding out that you gave the feds more dirt on him?”  
  
Jared shrugs and covers Jensen’s hand with his own and squeezes it lightly. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Tom, but as far as he knows I gave them everything the first time. It’s just weird. I just assumed he was a full time crook that was too lazy to do his own dirty work but, nope, he was literally leading a double life. What did he have to gain from all of this? I mean, he had a nice day job that paid well and had great benefits… why did he need to moonlight as a wannabe-mobster?”  
  
It’s something that Jensen’s thought about for the last five years. Why would Tom do this? Back in Hope he’d blamed Jensen for rising up the company ranks quickly but… Tom was smart and able enough to do that himself. The only thing he can put it down to was greed. Unlike Jensen, Tom didn’t have a lot when he was growing up, and while he acted like nothing bothered him, it was always a sore point for him. Tom would get angry at whatever he perceived to be unfairness. Jensen witnessed that first hand after an almost violent confrontation when someone on Tom’s floor received their marching orders.  
  
On the nights when Jensen can’t sleep and he blames himself for not being able to stop Tom, he usually concludes that Tom was set on a path of destruction long before any of this happened.  
  
Jensen shrugs when he sees Jared watching him expectantly. “I don’t know. And I don’t know what to do about the money if I can get access to it. I don’t really have the hacking skills for that, but---“  
  
“I know someone who does,” Jared interrupts. “If Chad was willing to help me out, I could probably use the name you discovered to try and track down any offshore accounts and get the money back. I’ve been wanting to do something like that for a while now.”  
  
For some reason, Jensen’s struck by the thought of Tom ending up stranded in Mexico (or wherever he’s holed up) with no cash, and no one willing to stick around once they realise that he’s flat broke. It makes him chuckle because despite his upbringing, if there’s one thing that Jensen could attest to about Tom it’s that the man has expensive taste.  
  
“What’s funny?” Jared asks. There’s a fond look in his eye and Jensen grins at him.  
  
“I was just thinking about what would happen to Tom if we really did get all of the money back,” he shares. “  
  
Jared snorts. “You mean he wouldn’t automatically end up being held forever hostage in a fortune cookie factory leaving ’help I'm being held hostage in a fortune cookie factory' messages in the cookies, and hope that Batman shows up to save the day?” Jensen looks at him for a split second before they both erupt into a fit of laughter.  
  
“I guess that beats being a laxative tester,” Jensen remarks once they sober up. “Or picking up elephant poop.”  
  
“Well, he  _is_  full of shit,” Jared shoots back. “Those jobs would be perfect for him. Hey, what if he decided to become Mexico’s very own answer to the Naked Cowboy?”  
  
Jensen lets out a mock-gasp. “Not the Naked Cowboy! Though I must admit ‘Desnudo Vaquero’ does have a nice ring to it.”  
  
“Yeah, it does.” Jared’s laugh is soft this time and Jensen knows that they’re about to go back to discussing more serious matters.  
  
“So what should I do about what I found out?” he asks. “Do Itry to put things right or just give it to the cops and let them deal with it?”  
  
Jared nudges his shoulder slightly. “I think that you’re better off taking the information to the cops. Let them deal with it, because if you obsess over it, it’ll destroy you and… I don’t want that to happen.” Jensen can feel the conversation switching towards  _them_  and he stands there in the middle of the room, powerless to whatever Jared’s about to say. He notices idly that the room’s been cleaned up. The empty bottles are gone, all traces of the previous week wiped away along with his anger.  
  
Jared exhales deeply before he starts. “I was just about to come and see you before you got here. I’m sorry that I didn’t call you, and sorry that this is so hard for you, but—and I know that there shouldn’t be a but because I did almost ruin your life _—_   _but_ I need you to tell me if you’re ever going to be able to forgive me. Like properly, not half-assed forgiveness where you throw it back in my face whenever you’re pissed.”  
  
Jensen’s torn between telling Jared that it’s not all about him and conceding the point. He’s in love with Jared, he knows that for sure. Can he forgive? Yes. Can he forget? Probably not, and there’s the kicker. Every time he closes his eyes he sees his old life and thinks  _where did it all go wrong_? But at the same time he knows that he really was just a shell in a suit before. Now? He’s just a broken mess with no shell to speak of and he thinks that Jared’s the same way. He’s just not convinced that they’re all that compatible. Broken plus broken doesn’t equal fixed. But… maybe that’s the beauty of it. He meant it when he said that he was done running, and while the occasional glance over his shoulder may occur, he meant it when he said ‘no looking back’.  
  
“You’re right,” he agrees. “I shouldn’t have blown up like that; I just snapped. It… it happened back in Hope and it happened today and it’ll probably happen again, but I’m working on it. I’m working on forgetting what happened.”  
  
“You don’t need to forget it,” Jared says. “Not entirely. If you try hard to do that it won’t work. You just need to… move on. Put it behind you. Don’t let it ruin your life.”  
  
“Maybe we can help each other move on,” Jensen says, taking the peace offering for what it is. Jared could make a bigger deal of all the shitty things that he said and make him atone for every one of them but he won’t, and for whatever reason, that means everything. It means that he  _understands_. The way his parents never will, or even Danneel.  
  
It hits him then that while he was the one in a cell, Jared essentially made life a prison of his own making the day he went back to Hope - living in constant fear, knowing that Tom could shatter the illusion he’d created at any second. They’ve both done their time.  
  
Jensen knocks his shoulder against Jared’s gently and concludes, “We deserve to be happy.”  
  
Jared nods as a slow smile spreads on his face. The Jared that he met back in Hope would frown and shrug before making some offhand comment about how he’s done bad things and doesn’t deserve happiness, but the Jared of today looks like he actually believes in himself.  
  
Believes in Jensen.  
  
And that makes Jensen believe.  
  
They  _do_  deserve to be happy.

 

 

  
  
Danneel’s never been any good at making chicken soup. Or any kind of soup. Yet here she is in a town called Hope (of all things!) standing over a hot stove and listening to her best friend bitch long-distance about making sure that there aren’t any random chunks in said soup.  
  
“Why would there be random chunks in my soup?” she asks in an aggrieved tone. Pigs will fly before she makes soup on Jensen’s behalf again.  
  
“You seem like the type of person who’d make chunky soup,” Jensen laughs. “Whatever, just don’t poison my boyfriend, okay?” It’s only then that she really remembers that this is supposed to be ‘Get Well’ soup to help Jared get over the residual fatigue from his chest infection.  
  
“Screw you.”  
  
Jensen laughs again and asks how Jared’s doing for the umpteenth time. She threatens to hang up before she relents and gives Jensen his stupid update just so he doesn’t call her twenty times in the next five minutes. He was supposed to reach town yesterday, and then today, but one of his meetings ran over and—she’s ashamed to say that she didn’t really listen much after that. Probably because being stuck in Jared’s house is driving her crazy.  
  
It’s not that she hasn’t come to like Jared, it’s just that she doesn’t get him. He’s supposed to be this bad-boy type who got up to all kinds of shit in New York, yet… at best, he’s more of a partially-emo pretty boy, spat out by the hustle and bustle of city life because it was the complete opposite of his upbringing.  
  
She doesn’t really buy any of the excuses that Jensen makes for him, because whether or not he was eighteen or twenty-three, Jared’s not stupid. He’s smart enough to have not been led by Tom and his crew for so long, but whatever, she’s not the one dating him. And even though it’s only been a year, she gets the feeling that Jared’s going to be around for a while. There’s an intensity to their relationship that she’s never seen before, and never fully understood but… maybe she’s starting to. She needs to, especially now that this is where Jensen stays during his downtime, hence why she’s here. It’s been a while since they’ve seen each other and she’s got a couple of weeks off work.  
  
“Ugh,” Jared remarks as he shuffles into the kitchen looking paler than he did this morning. “I am not eating that.” She rolls her eyes though she has to admit that her soup does look rather disgusting. She’s never claimed to be a budding Betty Crocker.  
  
“Says the guy who can’t boil potatoes.” Danneel can’t either, but who is she to let the truth come between their back and forth? It’s literally the only way they can have a conversation. Somewhere along the line, Jared got it into his head that she didn’t like him and then she convinced herself that he didn’t like her and now they have this weird relationship where they tiptoe around each other. She likes him just fine even though some lingering doubt remains, however it’s small enough that she reckons that they’ll be okay.  
  
“Like you can.” Jared shoots back as he slumps down into a chair. She turns off the stove, frowning at the soup before deciding that she’ll just lie and tell Jensen that she actually made something edible. Serves him right for forcing her to make it.  
  
“So… what are your plans for when Jensen reaches town?” she asks as she joins him at the kitchen table.  
  
“Not sure,” Jared says around a huge yawn. “You can ask him later. He’s still coming tonight, right?”  
  
“Tomorrow,” she says. “His meeting ran over.” Jared’s face falls, and Danneel is struck by a sudden urge to look away. Things haven’t been easy for either of them, especially since Jensen started working with Jeff (who she may or may not be secretly dating) at his new start-up company. Jensen has this weird friendship with Jeff that Danneel can’t put a read on, but she knows it’s from their time in prison. She also knows the real reason why Jeff was in prison and can only assume that’s why Jensen agreed to work with him. Jensen is  _not_ the kind of person who’d give an ex-con a chance just for the sake of it.  
  
“Oh,” Jared says glumly. Danneel says nothing after that. She just sits there with him and does her best not to insult his partially flattened hair, which is her way of being nice.  
  
~  
  
It’s three in the morning when she hears a familiar revving sound. It takes her a few minute to wake up fully but she’s alert enough to recognise the sound of the back door slamming shut. With a groggy sigh she heaves herself out of bed and takes a peek out of the window. Jensen’s there in his now-worn out leather jacket, his bike parked behind him. His helmet hangs loosely from his hands and falls as he looks up and grins so brightly that Danneel has to squint. Jared emerges then, still dressed in his sleep clothes, and he rushes forward, throws his arms around Jensen and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. From her vantage point, she can see the way Jensen’s eyes flutter shut as he holds Jared just as tightly, and she takes a step back, knowing fully well that she’s intruding on what should be a private moment.  
  
She’s never seen Jensen smile the way he does when Jared is around and Jared’s never really complete unless he’s got Jensen by his side. That much is obvious, as is the fact that this long-distance thing they’re trying won’t work in the long-run. One of them is going to have to make a choice between leaving and staying. She knows that they both know this, but from looking at them, and trying to figure them out, she thinks that she gets it.  
  
Jensen’s a moth and Jared’s a flame. Jared’s dangerous and enticing all at the same time, and there’s no way that Jensen can stay away from the sheer force of Jared’s pull.  
  
Or maybe it’s the other around.  
  
They both draw each other in so deeply that there’s no breaking free, no making it out unscathed and… maybe that’s how love’s supposed to be. The only thing Danneel knows is that  _every time_  she sees them together there’s always that moment. That moment where Jensen looks at Jared like he’s the only person in the world. Or that moment where Jared grins so hard that she has trouble reconciling him with the sullen man she met back in the city.  
  
There’s always that moment where they come  _alive_  and she’s just knows.  
  
She knows that their flame will burn long and bright.  
  
 _Fin_.  


* * *

  
Bonus scene!

 

 

  
It’s two days before Jared goes back to Hope. They’re both stuck in a type of limbo where they don’t want to spend the entire time having sex but simply spending time together only serves to remind them that in two days Jared’s going back. He’s leaving and Jensen doesn’t know what to say, or do. He…going back to Hope isn’t an option. Not because he’s too good for it or anything like that but because he’s not done here in New York. He wants to show all of the people that doubted him that he can bounce back and be in business successfully again. Jared simply wants to go back home. Jensen’s not about to stop him but he’s not about to let him go either.  
  
“So, I wanted to talk to Jared,” Danneel says at breakfast. She gives her kitchen the usual disparaging glare, even though she no longer complains about Jensen’s obsessive need for everything to gleam. “If the two of you are doing this thing for real then we need to set some rules.” Jared’s eyes widen at that and Jensen stifles a laugh. Jared’s convinced that she doesn’t like him but Jensen knows that she just worries about whether or not they can really move past all that’s happened. That she cares at all to give Jared the  _speech_  means a lot to him regardless of how she feels.  
  
“Okay,” Jared says eventually. “Let me have ‘em.”  
  
Danneel smiles serenely. “There’s only really one. Don’t break his heart. His last boyfriend, Ben, was an asshole and my biggest regret was that I didn’t threaten to break every single bone in his body if he fucked things up. Instead, I may or may not have thrown a drink in his face the last time I saw him.”  
  
“You threw a drink in his face?” Why is Jensen only hearing about this  _now_?  
  
“It’s a possibility that I did,” she replies, smile dropping off her face suddenly. “But I like to right the wrongs that I make so. I’ll just say that if you fuck this up, you better run, buddy. Because I really will fuck your shit up.”  
  
Jared’s swallow is audible and Jensen can’t help squeezing his knee under the table. Danneel terrifies  _him_  sometimes.  
  
“Message received,” Jared says hastily when he notices that she’s staring at him. “Loud and clear.”  
  
“Good!” Danneel says as she opens one of the pine coloured cupboard doors and pulls out the blender. “Does anyone want an avocado smoothie?” Jared turns to face him and mouths ‘ _what just happened?_ ’’ and Jensen shakes his head with a laugh. Hell, he’ll calm Jared down later, right now he’s just content to sit back and relax in the company of his best friend and boyfriend.  
  
For the first time in a long time, it feels like his feet are finally on solid ground.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
